Carrying the Fire

Many of us bloggers ask ourselves why we blog...what’s the point...it’s all going to hell anyway...the bastards don’t appreciate it...if they are hell-bent on their own destruction, then why waste my time…

Then you get posts like this one  at Troy’s.

I love Troy’s Scribbles. It’s raw, honest to the point you feel like corrupting Troy just on the sheer principle of human frailty, and most of all, it is a constant reminder of the individual human beings that are the whole reason for us giving a damn about the big issues.

Reading Scribbles is like reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. The journal of a very difficult, at times seemingly hopeless personal journey within a larger world state which seems equally hopeless. Troy tells us of his own travels, of local politics, of the unending struggle of First Nations in a country that largely would like to relegate them to history – and a whitewashed history at that- and he writes of larger, universal issues, told with a raw style that often makes them appear bleak as well.

Oh, lovely, 900! Yeah, let’s just all go read more bleak shit!  Why should we?

Why? Because Troy is a Good Guy and he Carries The Fire.

I asked him awhile back how he manages to stop from exploding in a violent rage. To be honest, I couldn’t remember exactly what he told me because I didn’t entirely get it. I thought I did, but I never really understood until his post of December 1, 2010.

(excerpts)

Got mean and dirty, low down and nasty. Went and accused a brother of 'running off to the white man to solve our own problems'…

…I'd like to hide under my bed, now, but it's not raised off the floor. Anyhow, it's complete bullshit. The government doesn't care about First Nations. It's openly advancing a policy of assimilation. Thus, when I witness a brother using the government's propaganda concerning our people, leaders, and nations, I wanna explode.

I'd like to smack 'em one, but hurting my hand on someone's thick skull doesn't serve my agenda.

Insulting my brothers who have beliefs counter to mine doesn't serve my purpose, either.

Or does it? I just don't know.

Argh!

Such isn't what I wish to be, though. I want to be as my ancestor, Chief Kinbasket, who stopped a war with dialogue. I want to be as Chief Joseph whose appeal to the US people saved his people from a military massacre at the hands of the blue coats.

Anyway, I'm gonna try to be the change I wish to see in this world.

Reading that brief, informal post, I understood several things. Being decent, not losing your temper out of frustration, using words rather than a fist…these things aren’t done as a courtesy to your opponent, and they aren’t even done because of some ingrained sense of morality. They are a way of fighting all the crap that’s out there by preserving what’s best in our humanity.

By living it rather than preaching it, people who do this also show others what is good and worth preserving. It certainly shows me. If we give up and give in to negative ways of dealing with people and situations, we have already lost an important part of the battle against the undermining of those better aspect of humanity.

That there is sometimes a struggle in a person to act as they would like the rest of the world to act is even more commendable in those who persist in maintaining the best of what is human, because it shows us that being decent is a conscious thing, not an innate ability that a few fortunate people are born with. Seeing someone who has not had an easy time and who faces more hardship make the effort to be decent causes us to slow down and ask why they bother.

It gives us a chance to question and determine that there is value in being decent. There is value in carrying the fire.

So thanks, Troy.