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Ardor
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| Trashcan; Charley Freiberg photo |
Ardor.
Fervor, zeal, passion, vehemence, devotion, intensity, fire,
eagerness, enthusiasm, emotion, intensity.
Comes a time in most lives – about the time we hit 16 years
old, sometimes a little later, or, sometimes all over again at a later age –
when we seek an object or mission on which to focus our ardor. We’re brim-full
of it at that age, and desperate to make use of it. Life - normal, day-to-day, mundane, boring life –
just isn’t enough.
Our ardor is like an animal inside us, surging, seeking, lighting
upon and muckling onto something, or someone, that we deem – surprisingly often
very wrongly – to be worthy of our passion, our conviction, our intensity, our
strongest beliefs. We might discover an art form that speaks to us, somehow
completes us; we might be swept away by love for a god or spiritual leader, and
join a religious sect or monastery, become a preacher, become a contemplative,
proselytize to everyone we encounter; we might devote our lives to healing
others; we might become a fiery social worker, or lawyer, or peace worker,
determined to save and change lives. We might decide we can effect social
reform better as a policeman, a soldier, a politician, a farmer, or a saint.
Sometimes our ardor latches onto less world-shattering
things – we become enamored of style, or gardening, or food, or wines, or horses, or martial
arts, or sports. Sometimes our ardor launches us down roads that can ultimately
be very wrong for us, or dangerous, or that sweep over others in evil ways: we
fall passionately in love with exactly the wrong person, we acquire addictions
that will suck us dry, we join a gang, we acquire weapons, we become hard-line
religious fanatics, join a cult, become a soldier-for-hire or fight for a questionable
cause. We pursue money at all costs; we pursue power no matter what it takes.
We join hate groups, become neo-Nazis, or white supremacists, white
nationalists.
Ardor burns hot: it has one thought, one goal in mind; it
justifies all means to achieve its end. It can create an inspired leader, or a
murdering dictator; it can drive its container to invent something amazing,
find a cure for horrible disease, improve the lives of millions of people
through social reform; or murder a doctor who performs abortions, or blow up a
temple, or perpetrate other diverse acts of terrorism, or kill a young woman
who is marching in protest of hate groups. The thing about ardor is that it
doesn’t hear reason; it doesn’t acknowledge the possibility that it might be
wrong-headed; it doesn’t seek or accept compromise.
Most of us outgrow those first flushes of adolescent ardor.
Life intervenes. Our brains and thought processes develop and we begin to be
able to think clearly and not only feel intensely. Experience teaches us to
curb our ardor, to rethink where we have directed it. We get tired of the
constant struggle with the unsuitable mate; we need to direct our money and
intention towards baby clothes or an ill or aging relative; we break the
addiction because we’re weary and afraid to die; we get away from the gang
because we acquire a family; sometimes, if our ardor remains unabated, we get
killed. Sometimes we continue to pursue the objects of our ardor, because
they’re basically harmless – we follow a sports team enthusiastically and name our children after our favorite
players; we drink expensive wines and bore our friends with tales about it and
fill our cellars full of it; we join a group of people as enthusiastic and
obsessed with model train sets as we are and turn our cellars and back yards into
complex trainways. And yet, we manage to
live our lives, be productive members of society, raise children, enjoy friends
who have other interests. Or we become artists or doctors or social workers or
politicians or cops or inventors, and improve the world as much as we can, feeding
the flames of our ardor all our lives, loving what we accomplish through the
ardor that enables us to live fully and do something amazing and important.
But in some of us, it goes all wrong. We waste our lives
shouting vile things at people we don’t know; we join with others like us to
terrorize people who we think aren’t like us; we kill; we maim; we try to destroy
and tear down. We are hell-bent on destruction.
There are theories – theories that have some psychic basis
in real people – that we’re born inclined to an archetype we’re driven to
embody if we want to experience fulfillment in our lives: Scholar, Warrior,
Healer, Priest, Mage, Artist and others. The folks who most often become
problematic to the rest of us, when how they fulfill the drive of their ardor
goes awry, are Warriors. You can see it in their faces; you can hear it in
their voices; you can observe it in the way they dress themselves, arm
themselves, present themselves – they love military regalia, guns and knives
and other weapons, they love banding together to shock with a show of force,
and putting themselves in dangerous situations, alone or in groups. They found
a cause, and they’re willing to die for it; they’re itching for a fight.
Whether they have the actual stamina and fortitude to hold up under actual
combat or returned resistance is anyone’s guess. But when it’s all dress-up and
marching and spouting off and threats and carrying weapons and torches and
causing terror or horror in on-lookers and their perceived enemies, then
high-fiving each other about their warrior virility and impact – it’s warrior
heaven.
They’re in their glory. They mean
something to themselves, and also, sadly, to the rest of us, and it’s not the
same meaning. But they believe themselves to be a righteous force to be
reckoned with. They feel more real, more fulfilled, than when doing anything
else. And they believe they’re fighting a good fight – even when the rest of
the world disagrees - so they aren’t going to curb their ardor.
And this is the problem – we can’t reason or compromise with
them, we can’t thwart them in a way that will make them stop. Oppose them we
must, with vigor and with clarity, continually and in multitudes; but if we want them to stop
and not become more destructive, we need to correct and redirect their Warrior
nature. Dad used to say, “The only person who can train a grown man away from
his chosen inclinations is a tough drill sergeant.” The first thing the drill
sergeant must do is shut the noisy ones up, teach them what being a Warrior is
really all about, and not allow them to play with weapons until they’re calm
and reliable, and trained into a new way of thinking.
So let’s start by shutting them up, and not feeding their
warped Warrior ardor. We were in error
letting them simmer underground, watching them poke their heads up from time to
time, bubbling away in the dank places on the Internet, in molding hidey holes,
in the rotten offspring they begat that we allowed to have too much attention
in the name of free speech. Let’s name
them for what they are: terrorists; and make it hard for them to band together
and find each other. Let’s take away their weapons – which should not be
allowed in the possession of warped psyches, and certainly not in public.
When they arrive in our cities and towns to spew their venom
and march in their costume parades, let’s restrict them to carefully defined
areas, and let them march in empty streets lined with shuttered doors and windows; give them only silent
squares and lonely alleys. Let us turn our faces away from them, leave them to
sputter only to each other. Let their only audience be someone’s granny, who cries
on them “Shame, shame, shame!” Take their photos for future reference, but
don’t remark on their audienceless gatherings. Attention, and news stories, and
their words repeated in media feed their ardor. Even whacking them with mace
becomes a history of glory in their twisted minds. Instead, let them slither in
the shadowland of our refusal to look or listen to their vile spewings.
While they’re throwing their lonely demonstrations that no
one else comes to, let us meet on the
other side of town, in the sunny streets, and celebrate each other. We are all
Witnesses; and we don’t have to play by their rules.
Special note to northern states fellas who fly the
Confederate flag but aren’t actually racists or anti-Semites: We get it –
you’re Johnny Rebs, all anti-establishment, fast-driving, law-bending,
free-spirited bad boys. Woo-hoo. But that flag means some seriously bad shit to
most of the country, so it’s time to find another flag to fly. The people who
are serious about that flag aren’t your brothers or your soul-mates – exactly
the opposite, in fact. So liberate yourselves from that misrepresentation so we
know whose side you’re really on.
For the blog, August 22, 2017
