Up For It

I do not know if this is helping at all.  I am trying not to hurt myself by thinking too much.  I have been writing on body, soul and spirit.  Today I thought “I need a break.”  Time for a lighter topic.  Yet this morning I was listening to a song I have mentioned before called ,“Letters from War."  One line in that got me thinking.  It said something like “I know what I’m fighting for.”
I must admit I really like that line.  It does fly in the face of this age of cynicism.  I appreciate that much that has been clung to has turned out to be sand that passes through the fingers.  But I do have a problem with destroying hope completely.  I reckon that something unproven is not necessarily untrue.
It seems to me that this is like the “we know better” age.  I would contend that we don not know better, but we think we know better.  Some things have been a change for the better.  But we, like those in the past, are flawed.
A former general was asked, “what have we learned from the war in the Ukraine?”  He said (and I paraphrase) “For all the changes technology has made, it is the human element that stands out.”  To me, it is always the human element that stands out.  Maybe mass destruction has been wrought, but those on the receiving end all were individuals that had a story.  Hopes and aspirations.  A real belief that they knew what they were fighting for.
In World War one, many young people went off like they were embarking on a great adventure. Looking back, we know that the great adventure turned into a horrible great adventure for many.  Yet so many went with the thought “I know what I’m fighting for.”
I look back and I know no power was perfect, and so often I am just fulfilling someone else’s agenda.  But I have an agenda.  To me a flaw does not necessarily make the concept wrong.
They showed on tv one time someone who wants to rewrite World War one.  The naivety expressed in a multitude of letters does not reflect current thinking.  Easy fix.  Rewrite history.  So many may have responded to the bidding of their government, yet they had their own reasons for going.  They saw themselves defending our country.  Fighting for what they perceived as a just cause.  Wanting to maintain a freedom they enjoyed.
I ask myself, “is that a bad thing?”
I am a great one for buying time.  Maybe today our society is sliding into quiet submission but what transpired bought us time.  What they were fighting for may with the passage of time prove to a lost cause, but in their lifetime it made a difference.
I personally do not want to re-write the past that does not fit into my perceptions.  I am happy to celebrate the good, learn from it all, and move on.