fpdorchak

I read something the other week and again this morning which really got me to thinking about something I’ve often thought about: that humans are inherently violent. Evil.

Now, I have always taken issue with this statement from the very beginning and as far back as I can remember, which to me was my early 70s Star Trek watching days. Maybe it was from all the other reading I did, which was largely philosophical and metaphysical, but I never believed that statement–and still don’t.

What I recently read was a “letter” written by ex-Army Captain Paul K. Chappell. Chappell is also a West Point graduate, served seven years, and deployed to Baghdad. Look at this link and take a good look at his pictures.  He has a different look in his eyes, his face, his energy, from his Army days to civilian life.  Really look at the last photo, April 2005.  And check out this 10-minute YouTube video Mr. Chappell gave at American University, in Washington, D.C.

What Chappell wrote was that people are not inherently warfaring nor violent nor evil nor warmongering. We are the opposite to all this, because the basic nature of people is to FLEE violence or someone else trying to disembowel us or anything else heinous. If we were so inherently violent, we would not flee violence, not avoid war–but embrace it, run toward it. If we were so naturally violent and warlike, why does war mess up so many people? Why PTSD? Mr. Chappell says that 98% of soldiers who go to war experience some form of psychological trauma, but 2% do not. Why do these 2% not go “crazy,” as he puts it?

Because they were already that way.

One of the key things Mr. Chappell also discusses in the letter I read was how do governments get people to go to war? And this I’d learned over time on my own: by dehumanizing the “enemy.” By getting those fighting wars to feel they have to go to war to protect some element of their own, be it family or their own localized “band of brothers.” Then, Mr. Chappell says, people will fight and not flee.

I didn’t write this post to attack our government or give reasons for why we’re in war. I write this post to show others and clarify and corroborate–to myself, even–what I’ve always believed to be true: that humankind is inherently PEACEFUL.

Peaceful.

That’s all.

I found this next site’s link in an e-mail I get, and think it dovetails nicely into my Down the Rabbit Hole post. For all the Doom and Gloom (D&G) being perpetuated by you and me and everyone else, in that we ALL have a hand in the reality we’re creating (i.e., it’s never someone else’s fault, such as the government’s, or “Big Oil,” or the “Religious Right,” because we all have a hand in creating what ends up manifesting into our individual and mass realities), from Gulf oil spills, wars, and lack of individual successes and happiness, I like this link because Lynda Dahl, who created this link, gives some explanation to what she presents. Yes, it’s all about a Seth-based philosophy, yes its’ “weird” to the uninitiated, but also, yes, it’s an optimistic way of thinking, and yes it “gives” control of our lives to back to us (I quote “gives,” because it’s always been with us, according to this way of thinking, so there’s really nothing to “give” back, really). Now, that can be scary for some, a boon to many. And it’ll definitely go against the grain for others who believe other systems of beliefs, but I much prefer to believe in something that gives hope and control and no D&G than anything else that does. And I’m sure that last sentence evokes all kinds of “head-in-the-sand” arguments, but that, again, is part of another system of belief, to which I don’t subscribe.

And I ain’t perfect, lemme tell you!

I’m just like everyone else out there, trying to make my way through this life I’m living in the best way possible!

The philosophy will tell you that’s it’s just a matter of changing your beliefs and all is modified. It’s the “just” that’s the hard part, whether or not we make it hard. Not everyone can do it, or many can, but to varying degrees of success. But in any event, I much prefer this system of thought to anything else out there. All this is even discussed within its philosophy.

I digress.

I wanted to put this link out there as a counter, so to speak, to all the D&G. As my little part in helping show there’s another way to what we think there may be to living, breathing, and thinking life, and this way may help others in redirecting their thoughts to more useful, productive, and positive ends, as I talked about in my previous post and which was what Down the Rabbit Hole was all about.

I just finished watching the second What the Bleep movie, called What the Bleep!? Down the Rabbit Hole. I find these movies extremely thought provoking, especially given my studies of Jane Roberts’ Seth material. Much of these movies I have little to disagree with, but I do question why none of Jane and Rob Butts’ Seth material was not included. Perhaps it was in the first movie and I simply forgot.

I found two things most interesting in this second, Rabbit Hole, movie:

1)      The statement about the “art of observation”

2)      The statements about our thoughts affect our life/reality.

I’ve read articles about thoughts affecting personal health in such mundane booklets like an HMO’s semi-annual newsletter kind-of-thing, so I know this is making its way into more and more mainstream thought, but it’s implications really are staggering when you give it some thought (pardon the pun)—and take it to its logical conclusion. Including Dr. Emoto’s water experiments. I haven’t delved much into his work, but it all seems focused around water. Why not Mountain Dews, or cigarettes, or movies?  Food. Given item 2, above, why not go further and say, hey, if your thoughts really and truly affect all of life around us, on a quantum level that translates into a macro level, then I believe thoughts and intent affect far more than water structure. Why not take it to food, for instance? Or Age?

What if it’s really not the calories or anything else in food that makes us fat?

Or the dilution of the cells that makes us old?

What if it’s our beliefs in them that make us experience what we observe?

If you see the movies they explain it really well, about how it’s the observation of anything that effects the thing being observed. This has been in physics for quite some time, but never really brought out into mainstream thought or taken “far enough.” The movie also goes into explaining any such “casuality” between linear timelines, such as our past/present/futures effecting any linear combination of the other. See the movie or do your searches, not going into any of that in this short space. As to wave and particle theory—not going there, here, either. It’s been done to death before. Do your searches and make your own determination, s.v.p.

As to item #1 above, the “art of observation,” our movie(s) said we need to better make use of even our most minute observations. What is meant here? Maybe we should, essentially, “expect better” than what we’re currently ”seeing.”  We look at the state of the world. It looks bad.  We’re in a couple wars, got global financial issues still trying to dampen out, any of a number of other “bad” things one can point a finger to. Our films’ talking heads, however, ask us to expect different…to consciously create a different view of life, and expect that. That none of us can turn our backs on the events of life and say “It’s not my problem,” or “I didn’t cause that.”

We all caused absolutely everything that occurs in life.

We all did by the way we think.

Look to how thoughts affected Dr. Emoto’s water experiments, of the scientific entanglement experiments.

As I’ve mentioned before, examine your thoughts…are they typically dark and pessimistic, or happy and optimistic. In between? Look at your life—I’m bettin it exactly mirrors your thoughts.

Prove me wrong.

I mean, I just stood there and looked at her.

Didn’t want to leave.

Something felt so familiar.

“They” say movies and pictures add 10 pounds to people…well, there’s also something movies and pictures add to history. Seeing something firsthand seems to strip away all the pomp and makeup and lighting and “best sides” to the bare, unadulterated truth.

This…was a war machine.

A well-crafted, lethal, deliverer of death and destruction.

So why the fascination? Why did so many men turn into kids around things like aircraft and boats and battlefields?

Why do they jockey for position to get in front of others to squeeze in and crawl through a claustrophobic metal tube such as the B-17’s fuselage?

I spent last weekend crawling throughout and marveling at a refurbished B-17G, the Liberty Belle. Words near fail me. This is something that has, well—I’ll use the term “haunted”—me since I first got my hands on Flying Fortress:  The Illustrated Biography of the B-17s and The Men Who Flew Them, by Edward Jablonski, oh, so many years ago. Liberty Belle tours  the United States. Except for the $450 rides aboard it, and any donations that are stuffed into an empty bomb shell, touring the ship (or “Fort” as it used to be called by some aircrew) is free. I explored nose to tail. All of it. Actually crawled through the much narrower-than-expected empennage to the aft tail gunner compartment—and it is a crawl, all fours—as well as experienced the waist, radio, bombardier, and pilot compartments. Getting in just aft of the bombardier compartment is a squeeze. And once inside, you’ll find there’s little “elegance” involved in its construction. Everything is totally functional. From the Spartan and oddly place tail gunner seat (maybe it was locked into position and was actually adjustable, I don’t know…), to the lethal Browning machine guns. Interior exposed fuselage airframe. There’s no padding or built-in comfort here.  It was a fascinating, fascinating in-your-face exploration of an important part of WWII history. It’s obviously not for everyone… but it may be for you. It may speak to a part of you you can’t explain…don’t want to admit to even being a part of you…but just go if there’s even a little part of you at all interested. No one’ll know—at least, not until you get that faraway look in your eyes. Then everyone’ll  understand and allow you your space. Your…moment.

Just go.

See what it does to you.

And watch the WWII veterans who also show up, because, yes, there are still quite a few out there, and some are willing to talk—but be reverent with them, because more than likely you’re not coming from the same “place” they are. For you, this might just be a weekend diversion, but for those guys who flew them…it’s most likely something else entirely. One contemporary Belle pilot told me how on one tour he found an elderly gentleman lying on his back on the tarmac underneath mid-fuselage, one hot day. He approached the man and asked if he was all right…if he needed a glass of water or anything. The gentleman responded he was fine…that this was just the last he’d seen of his plane when he bailed out of it during WWII. He’d been a ball turret gunner (on the underside of the ship).

I spent most of my time either looking at the Belle from the tarmac, or inside the tail gunner compartment. I crawled back there twice, the second time I had much more time to myself. For some of my own fascination with the tail gunner position, please check out my previous posts (first post and second post). Though there was a intense sense of familiarity around the B-17, there was nothing Twilight Zoneish about the experience as when I first visited Bull Run. But I tell ya, though I am a fan of aircraft, the B-17 really, almost “unaccountably,” gets under my skin…no other aircraft of WWII has this effect on me…in fact, I can’t think of any other aircraft that really has that effect on me, period. There is just something about this aircraft.

I visited the Belle all weekend. The first day it was windier than hell, with gusts at and above 40 mph, so the flight crew grounded themselves after some morning flights. I wanted to see the Belle take off and land, so came back Sunday to see it. I also spent a lot of time actually talking to those working and visiting the plane. Talked to a couple of the pilots, especially “John,” an easy six-foot-four or more easy going guy who simple fell in love with the ”romance” of flying the Liberty Belle. Also talked with an 86-year-old ex-pilot with over a 1,000 hours of B-17 time. He was a trip. I remarked to my wife how well he got along at 86 (I’m pretty sure that was his age), but when I talked with the gentleman, he rattled off a host of “issues” and operations he’d had—and that amazed me more! The guy had spunk! He also had a great little ditty about himself being a “Human B-17.” I have to find that. Talked with another “Frank” whose dad had been a tail gunner. If I’m keeping all the stories straight, his dad’s flight was the only plane that had returned from an air raid one day, and it was haunting returning to base. No more guys laughing or drinking or playing cards or riding bikes.

Silence.

Emptiness.

Sooo…I saw it take off—kinda.  There was this long building that actually masked any actual rubber-leaving-the-airstrip, but we saw it soon afterward. And as for landing..weeell, missed that too.  Another set of buildings also masked touchdown (we had to stay “behind the cones,” since it was an operational airport), though I got a great digital video of it taxing back to its parked location.

Then…after we’d returned home, the Belle flew directly over our home! I mean directly. Straight up—twice. I took some great digital video of that, too. It’s such a beautiful aircraft, and it’s so cool to see it in flight.

Call it synchronicity, lunacy, or whatever, but ever since late last year, I’ve been giving this tail gunner “issue” of mine some serious attention, and, as detailed in my previous posts, I’ve had some cool stuff happen. And I wrote a short story about it—which I’m still marketing. But, my weirdness aside, if anyone ever has a chance to see one of these beasts “in person,” and there’s even just the teensiest of inklings of interest—I highly recommend it.

I just stood there.

Did not want to leave.

I’ve had an interesting couple of weeks. During those weeks I went through, literally, a lifetime of debris. Newspaper articles, notes, artwork (so-called), manuscripts, and more. And during this little “Spring purging,” I experienced an unnerving epiphany: I truly and irrevocably…suck.

At least according to all the editors I’ve submitted to over my lifetime.

I mean, sure, none of them actually used the word “suck,” but it was all there, all right:

“Thank you for your interest in <fill in the blank>, but our market is currently full.”

“Thank you for your interest in <fill in the blank>, but not quite to our tastes—try again.”

“Thank you for your interest in <fill in the blank>, but your plot (if you can call it that) is weak, your story stinks, and your characters—heck, did you even have any?!”

“Thank you for your interest in <fill in the blank>, but no, you’re not collecting any money from us on this one. Why don’t you just do everyone a friggin favor and just die already?”

I have often and always heard that writers should have a thick skin and persevere. I have also heard often and always that writers should hang on to all their rejection letters.

Screw that.

Let me just tell you from two weeks (and one full-court press of four solid 12 to 14-hour days) of going through each and every dang rejection letter over the course of my nearly fifty years of walking this planet—I reject that convention!

Every time I picked up one of those damn things, you know what went through my head?

You SUCK!

Note even just “”you suck,” but “You SUCK!”

So why would I want to hold on to such negatively reinforcing behavior (even if it is true)? So, that in the one Big Moment that might possibly come in my future wanderings across this rocky and water-logged planet I could throw all these rejection letters back at the editorial world, and shout “SEE!” in a wild-eyed blaze of fervent and frothy vindication?

So I could paper my next home with them?

So I could use them to say, “Hey—one step closer to—“?!

Negative, no, and to hell with it.

I rejected holding onto such negative reinforcement. I rejected them.

And there were hundreds of them, lemmetellya.

Should I take the hint? Give up writing?

In the same breath, I found that some of the stuff that had been rejected had also been accepted by others. So, the saying that one man’s (or woman’s) trash is another’s gold is also at work here.

Without further dissection of the following, there simply is no accounting for taste. And I don’t care how meticulous one is in building their ability to wield the writing craft…many of us simply will not and/or never get published. There are other forces at work here, the elusive “taste” being one of them. Sure, work you ability to the bone, get better at what it is you’re doing. Best the best dang writer you can be, write, write, and continue to write. But what I learned from this little exhausting exercise of mine (beside all the dust that yes, does accumulate even in all this filed-away, hidden, paperwork) was this one très important fact:

Good, Lord, yes, have a frigging thick skin and persevere…but also, throw—heave away from you fast and hard and with all your might—absolutely every one of those goddamned rejection letters.

And have some Benadryl® and caffeine on hand.

I just got my claws on this new children’s book, Where Monsters Go When You Grow Up—did I say “children’s book”? I meant adult fable. No, wait—children’s…—well, this book could certainly be both, though it would definitely depend on the mindset of the child[ren] involved.  I think Monsters might be a little much for some, especially if they’ve never before brought up the topic of monsters-in-their-closest on their own, but then again, that choice would come from the parents who would best know their own lineage. But I definitely think it a cute story for age groups perhaps around the 7 or 8 (plus or minus) range, adults notwithstanding. And aren’t those some of the best books…something for children and adults? Monsters was good at putting “monsters” in a “good light,” if that be at all possible….

Note disclosure: G. Dorchak, author and illustrator, is a brother of mine. I have a couple…and one sister.

Now, sure, I could go into the in-depth deconstructionist psychic politics of why children see monsters (with or without closets) in the first place, wring out all the tried and true metaphysical psychologies, archetypal monster transference symbologies from parent to child and whatnot—buuut I won’t. And though the story is upbeat and fun, there was an undercurrent of melancholy…in growing up…or out…of childhood…and how that affects the parents. Not that I’ll admit it, but it caused me to shed a tear when I first read it.

I loved this book! Loved the artwork, the color, the props, the playfulness of its pages and story. Loved the out-of-the-ordinary character names “Esmeralda” and “Vladimir.” I always love to look at stuff in the background…under beds, pictures hanging on walls—the patterns and images on bedspreads. Readers familiar with my brother’s work will note ye old yak—Harvey the Yak—images in the book. I miss Harvey! Bring him back, Greg!

A handful of pages, however really stuck out at me, involving intentional or unintentional foreshadowing, turning points, and the poignant. I am quite intrigued with transition points, like “…until one Thursday evening…,” on page 25 (this passage actually also reminded me of Bogie narrating one of his  film noir Philip Marlowe moments). I’m fascinated in how they manifest, how they’re handled, and what they mean. Turning points can make or break a story—or one’s life.

Perhaps I’m making too much out of all this, but these “monsters”—metaphorically or otherwise—are endearing. I loved how Greg transferred the monster role from himself to his child…and then it came back around to him. Full circle. I love how the monsters “broke the fourth wall” to display a subtle humor and vulnerability regarding their own self-awareness of the roles they play in all this drama.

But, sometimes a monster is just a monster, right?

In my humble opinion, this book isn’t just about the children in our lives, or being skeered…it’s about the adults—the parents. It’s how we’re all tied to each other. The cycle of life and death. How we transition. How we grow. The trials we champion…the help we get…and how we, in turn, apply what we’ve learned to those going through the very same issues we went through.

In short, Where Do Monsters Go When You Grow Up is about life.