Most contemporary RPG games have a saving point. The adventures that we live are quite like these games. What I look for in the middle of the most difficult parts of the games, and always have, are the save points. In the middle of the battle, most people want a way to save the progress that they have made through the adventure. Our live's adventures are similar in the sense that from time to time we need a point to save what we have done, set a new goal, and remember the narrative of what we are doing. Just before defending my thesis in graduate school, I wanted a save point. The document had been accepted and all that was left was the public defense. I wanted a save point almost at the end of the term in case of "do-overs." It wasn't there. Sink or swim is the nature of those defenses.
Most of life's adventure cannot be a "do-over." None of us have an actual time machine, other than our collectible Tardises and back-ups for our Apple computers, to change our lives in the past. At some point, we either learn to move forward or cyclically re-run the mistakes of the past hoping that life will somehow get better. It doesn't.
It seems unnecessary to write that some activities are more important than others. Certainly, job interviews, performance reviews, concert performances, the birth or death of a family member, and weddings are high priority events and are obviously of more importance than starting the dishwasher before bed or on the way out of the front door. Over time, we learn that these events are the experiences that we are seeking, but the experiences of life that we've been given or have chosen. Some, we would rather reset our lives and go back to the previous save point because we may not think that we have the experience to go up against the level of danger or risk that we are currently facing. When are we ready for too much danger?
We choose to continue forward into the danger, even with our doubts and thoughts. Without a plan or even a concept of what we might do in the future. We take our feelings of inadequacies, fear of the unknown, whatever armor we think we need for the trip, pick up our keys for our trusty steeds and drive off into whatever reality we live for that day. Some of us at this point don't leave home without weapons which the US Constitution seemingly permits. Americans have the right to bear arms. We can own our own munitions and use them according to the laws. More and more people are learning about and earning open carry or concealed carry licenses to have their weapons with them consistently. Most people are doing this in the name of self-defense due to the "time we live in" or "how the world is today." The world isn't any different today than it was in the Middle Ages when people carried knives with them everywhere for protection. Some still do.
Today, the difference is consistent media-induced fear. It seems that, like many issues, this is double-edged. I, personally, don't have an issue with licensed citizens carrying their munitions with them. I was raised on military posts and not everyone is. It doesn't phase me to think that all of my students would be carrying weapons with them to school; I've taught on military posts. Soldiers are trained and have laws that govern munition use. I don't believe that churches have the right to regulate munitions in the United States. If that were so, then the government would be in violation of the Establishment Clause in the Constitution. It doesn't bother me to think that there would be guns carried into a church building; however, in this regard, agreed upon rules are often employed.
Not one gun shooting in America, whether in a church, school or nightclub, can be a do-over for any of the people involved. As a person who has considered a license to carry for my own protection, specifically in churches, the rise of establishments choosing to remove those with the same inkling is disturbing. Certainly, wanting to carry a weapon is not terrorism as I have, at one point in my life, been accused. I don't own a gun of any kind. I've never had the training or the desire to have one so much that I would go through the training to feel comfortable even owning one. There are others who own them with disregard to the training that they have citing the American right to ownership.
The problem that exists in America is not one of ownership. It is the common call that one person would have the right to force another to his/her point of view. The inner desire to have the respect that one person believes that he or she has earned or deserves from another. Unlike the military, respect is not built on rank or position in the world. While some positions do have expectations of respect and honor from the people around them, it doesn't mean that the people are required to do so like the military.
American citizenship brings with it an ugliness and a beauty all of its own. Is respect still an American value? Many in America would like to return to a fictitious save point. The crusade to return to a way long forgotten when men were men and women, well, weren't. Unfortunately, history shows that the concept of "the old ole days" never really existed. Sentimentality combined with a desire to cheat age and death want it to exist. Every generation chooses to change and stabilize their lives in their own ways. Respect won at gunpoint isn't respect; it's fear.
Fear is a motivation for most social change. The fear of oppression turns those who claim their freedom, on either side, are warriors for their causes. They want a better future they envision while others just have claimed it and live it now. It is not braver to be in a parade than to live the life you want every day. I dare say that it is not braver to be living now than not, to carry a gun than not, or to love than not. All of that is life. To me, life is holy ground even when it is perceptually being blown up.
I would rather it not be blown up. I desire less save points that way. I, like everyone else, like comfort. Discomfort and confusion denote learning. I cannot learn without it. It too is holy as is the endpoint to relationships. The end happens, especially if we shoot each other.
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