a bit further...

i went for a jog and took advantage of the bright sunny day we've received. The Almighty Jog works wonders. it really does. it helps me think. it provides an environment to find clarity. probably all that hard breathing. :)

i think what i'm trying to get at in the post below is that intellectual investigation of violence and victimization become dangerous sometimes... dangerous in terms of inadvertently trivializing the suffering of others. i'm reminded of Susan Sontag's book "Regarding the Pain of Others" and how we have a moral responsibility when it comes to the proliferation or manufacture of images of other people's suffering- whether that representation is of a creative nature or documentary or expository. we may not use these images to speak for the victims and we must be on guard in using specific acts of victimization as metaphors that sensationalize, glamorize, minimize, or trivialize the event itself. to do so is to add a new layer to the victimization that has already occurred. we further the humiliation. and in someways, possibly inadvertently, encourage the outlook that the victim is somehow to blame. it disregards pathos as being a true, accurate state of being.

i am trying currently to merely hold a candle for others. i am not trying to speak on behalf of the victims. i cannot tell their stories for them. what i can do is raise them up so that they are seen... remembered... given a platform from which to scream or cry or whisper... or even forgive. whatever the story, it does inspire hope. whatever the horror, we can be gentle, we can be thoughtful, we can be truly progressive.