Liudmila Vasilyeva is detained at an anti-war February 24 at Gostiny Dvor. Her placard reads, “No war, please” Photo: Artyom Leshko/Novaya Gazeta We met with Liudmila Nikolaevna Vasilyeva in between demonstrations. On February 24 she—a survivor of the WWII-era Siege of Leningrad and a Soviet veteran of labor—was arrested outside the Gostiny Dvor shopping center […]“We Had a Delightful Crew in the Paddy Wagon”: An 80-Year-Old Petersburg Anti-War Activist Tells Her Story — The Russian Reader
The last few years have been mad ones. Our interactions with each other, our national and international politics, COVID-19, Ukraine – and there is a load of other stuff tightly packed in and around those few. The world seems to be sliding off the rails. I hear John Noble voicing Denethor echoing in my head, “Abandon your posts! Flee! Flee for your lives!”
But where can we go?
We are all sailing through space, on a little glob of earth. On the surface of that glob are a few drops of water and the tiniest sliver of miraculous life. The world is full of puffed up and angry people who imagine themselves giants when in reality we are all less than amoebas on the cosmic slide that holds the speck that is our Earth.
We should be working together to solve the great challenges of mankind. Each country has knowledge and resources that could fix problems elsewhere in the world. Instead we hoard our wealth and fight to gain power over each other.
I speak of the human race as a whole. This may not apply to you. You may be outraged, hurt or even offended by my words. That is not my intent. The truth is that I am talking to myself on this blog to see if it is any better than screaming into the wind.
There are good people on this earth but the ignorant are louder and their words and actions are contagion.
If we don’t do something differently then one day we’ll be gone. Every one of us gone. No more spring time, or Mardi Gras. No more concerts, Marvel movies, good food or babies. No more of anything. Good, bad, famous, unknown, rich, poor, black, white, tall, short, talented…. none of it will matter.
What a terrible waste that would be.
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