Icicles, Waterfalls, and War

We’re gearing up for a semi-big snowstorm here in New England and while I’m looking forward to the cascade of white stuff coming down from the sky, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that it’ll complicate things somewhat for my weekend. Since, you know, the weather is all about me.

Dry humour aside, I went breezing through December’s catalogue of images to try to dredge up something, anything, that would get me focused on what is yet to come; a taste, if you will, of the icy splendor of winter. Given I was just in Nova Scotia and got to see some of the powdery white draped across the fir trees, I’m reasonably well prepared for what will come. Ice, however, I’m not so enthused by.

In the bottom portion of this picture of one of Tannery Fall’s resplendent waterfalls, icicles are clinging to the bottom of a downed trunk. It may be slightly hard to pick out, given their crystalline clarity but you can see their jagged peaks jutting out into the darkened waters below. Their tenacity is only outdone by their seclusion in the darkened shadows of this hollow; removed from a majority of the sun’s gentle kiss during waking hours.

I saw them by chance and had to work across water-slicked rock, clammy mud, and other woodscape detritus to get close enough to capture this scene. Perhaps it’d show up better in black and white but, there’s something about the light here that demands more than the gray.

We pursue the objects of our affection with a similar focus, don’t we? We see what we want, we figure out the ways and means to get it, and we pursue it doggedly until it is in our possession. We are no different, you and I, in our pursuits.

It’s the curse of humanity to desire, to lust for, to achingly want.

Wars are fought over resources, under the pretention of achieving a desired outcome for the people comprising our communities. When we’re attacked, we lash out, seeking to impose our iron will on the aggressors and, in turn, remove from them their most valuable assets and belongings.

War isn’t always about military might, however. The silent wars that rage about us are less visible, less atrocious for their garish displays of sovereign incursion, of blood and death, of fratricide and genocide. We are party to a war for the soul, for the mind of our communities and society daily. We are thrown into the heady mix of existential and philosophical sparring, ideologies and dogmas wielded like soldiers on the battlefield. We dig our trenches, pray in our foxholes, and hope that the mortar shells of fascism and liberalism do the dirty work for us, removing the stain of difference from our territory.

Still, too, we engage in wars of economy, data provenance, and privacy. We decry the use of our digital “wealth” in 0’s and 1’s in the hands of the oligarchical despots lining the streets of Silicon Valley. We bemoan the fact that Musk and Zuckerberg, Ellison and Cook, and others of their lofty status have control of anything, much less what we willingly offer up as tithes and offerings. We battle against the ideologies of this data-driven world but are helpless for all the convenience that it brings.

We are prone to learned helplessness, to a lopsided and parasitic homeostatic existence, you and I.

As I reflect on both the icicles, the waterfall, and our human desires, I’m reminded that we live in convoluted and complicated times. Our engagements with each other are less in person, less impactful for “showing up” and more detached and removed every day. We are warriors at keyboards and with cameras, not spears and shields. We view nature at arm’s length, through portals connected to fibre and electronics, that give us instantaneous views of the purported world outside. From the comfort of our living rooms and apartments, we conduct commerce, engage in social contrivances, and create in ways our ancestors would never dream of.

We’ve made our desires into convenience, our wars into global pursuits of data and intelligence, and our society into ideological minefields. The purity of an icicle doggedly clinging to the underside of a fallen tree is an aberration to be tossed back into the flood of digital memories because it doesn’t move our needle anymore.

I challenge you, dear souls, to view your world differently. To climb over the rocks and encumbrances put in place by the cheap and easy contrivances offered by our capitalism. To navigate to those sacred moments clinging desperately to the shadows and chilled air in the hollows of a changing social landscape. To engage in the mead hall celebration of yore, where victories and successes were lauded with uproars and boisterous song, defeats countenanced in the torn bandages and willowy cries, and where humanity came face to face with itself.

May it ever be so.