Darkness

There is a loss of self in peace,

a curious emptiness, a void to fill. 

Wounds too deep to lick crave blood to spill;

congeal on wounds to deep to heal,

a sorry comfort to an empty soul.  

A warrior ever roused,

he seeks solace in barbarity

striking terror to the moment,

the inglorious glorious moment.

And his bloodied hands slake his sordid soul

satiate his lust for blood,

bring completeness to that moment,

that inglorious glorious moment.

Anna :o[

Björn’s Tuesday prompt at dVerse is that of: War for peace – or just hard work?   He requested we use any form or trick to make us long for peace and not just hate war.  Although it is true I yearn for this world of ours to exist in a permanent state of peace, I cannot see it happening, ever, as mankind is as he is, is a predator, his prey being power and possessions.  There are some of us that walk softly on this Earth leaving our gentle footprints and oh so many others who churn up this Earth in unimaginable savagery and greed.

War is the hallmark of our history since the very beginning, the very beginning when we dragged ourselves from the primordial soup, and so it continues.  Look around our world today, the barbarity that exists within it and how we seek (to some degree) to ignore it; let it be some others problem as we hang on to the tiny space we have defined as ours.   Please read this article on War and Peace in which it notes that there have been some 250 major wars since the end of WW2.  

On the same Tuesday night I viewed Meet the Psychopaths, part of which detailed the work of American psychiatrist  Hervey M. Cleckley in which he noted that some WW1 veterans had mental health problems that would not respond to treatment, and further checking showed these soldiers carried a history of poor conduct, that of antisocial behaviour.   Later work in a general hospital setting, he came across individuals who showed the same personality traits, the same disturbed behaviour he had seen in the soldiers earlier.     From his observations he came up with 21 traits that to him, defined the label of psychopath and in 1941 his book The Mask of Sanity was published which brought the term psychopath into popular use. 

Estimate prevalence of psychopathy is that of 1 in 100-150 of us and we are what we are.  Of course not all psychopaths are of the axe-wielding variety, but look around our world today and you will recognise those who probably are, recognise them by their absolute barbarity and the pleasure and power they achieve from it.   

And so it is that evolution has little lifted us little from our primitive mindset and we will continue to battle until we wipe ourselves out.  Sad, but I think true.

I think it important to state that despite the misery above, I am a very happy optimistic soul, this state being due to the ability to dampen and maybe hide the realist in me.  Peace!

Shared with the good folk at dVerse OLN                 

Image: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Author:  Kabir Bakie