Stop and smell the Urine

Monday, April 14, 2008

Facebook | Daniel E Ford

I started out in November on what I thought was a month long road trip with Roy My daughter's chocolate lab. I was armed with a video camera planning on journeying our journey. As it has been said that the best laid plans of mice and men have gone astray. I suffer from combat related PTSD and leaving San Francisco I was leaving my support group. The change was slow in the beginning but I began to operate on survival mode. Most of the snap decisions I made moved me further and further in a dissociative state common to untreated PTSD. The next six months became a battle ground for my mind that ended with me being a home owner in Spindale. Still not standing upright on the ground. I took some good pictures and videos of Roy but the film could not say what I wanted to say. My original idea was to look at the world through Roy's eyes. Roy's wants, needs and desires are simple. There food and shelter like we who esteem ourselves higher beings, love and petting, eating, taking walks, treats, smelling the earth for whatever reasons, eating and getting treats. Roy like most labs is nonviolent but not afraid to defend himself and those he loves. I began to think what if we looked at the world through his eyes, the eyes of nonviolence we might usher peace into the world. It is not a new philosophy this philosophy of nonviolence, Gandhi used it to free India from the English empire, King spearheaded civil rights with it. In fact it turns out that nonviolence is a powerful tool. So why be nonviolent? We are the victims of violence. Do we not deserve justice? Another proponent of nonviolence Jesus said forgive your enemies and love them. Radical, what a notion. So here is Roy right up there with Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King and oh yes Mohammad was also nonviolent. Oh yeah! For those who regard cries for peace as cowardice I do not speak to you because it has been said, "Cast not your pearls before swine." Besides what can you tell a person who believes that they are right? To the rest I say, consider this, they may have a good idea.
Why is Roy nonviolent? Why should we be? After all we have been attacked. Have not I already said that Roy defends himself and others? Though I advocate peace I am not naive enough to believe it can come true by wishing. Violence begets violence and considering the state of world affairs we are on a down hill slide. Maybe it is time we too another at, Give peace a chance. It will not happen today and it might not even happen in my life time but if we do not begin now it will never happen.