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Showing posts from May, 2011

Who am I? And Other Questions from Childhood...

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I just spent the last several weeks working on a project for school and in the course of that work, something struck me.  Children from broken homes loose their identities.  People often assume that the affect of separation and divorce on a child is an emotional and psychological issue, and to an extent they are correct.  But it is also an ontological issue as well...in fact, I would go so far as to say that it's almost all an identity issue.   The two people who's very coming together was the reason you exist are no longer together, hence, at the very core of your being, you question the reason for your existence.  Hence, kids from broken homes begin to act out in ways informed by the search for identity. This is something that I had not thought of before.  My own memories of what it felt like to experience my parents separation were overshadowed by the sexual abuse that began within months of that event but I will say this - I always thought my search for self, identity,

Violence begets Violence

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Osama Bin Laden was killed by American Navy Seals yesterday. They stormed a compound in Pakistan, shot him in the head, took his body and buried it at sea. Another nail in the coffin of peace. Violence begets violence and yet we continue with the violence. Bad guy does violence, so good guy is justified to do violence back. The myth is that good guy violence will eventually win the day and bring peace. The myth has been told since the dawn of time. It started in Babylon, with their creation myth. Long before the Jewish creation story was written down in Genesis, the Babylonians had their own creation myth that has infiltrated the hearts and minds of fallen man ever since. It has permeated every single aspect of our culture and continues to this day to feed the violent, scapegoating tendencies of all of us. Here is how the myth goes. Apsu, the father god and Tiamat, mother god, gave birth to all the other gods. The children gods frolicked so much that Apsu and Tiamat decided to kill the