Weekly Update - 104 (Patreon)

It's a little bit further along than it was last week!

Comic this week: Yes

Drawing: Page 134

Playing: TW: Warhammer 3, Cyberpunk 2077

Ramble:

I don't even really want to post this, but I kinda need to vent. The real world has always been a crazy place, and it's been a little extra crazy this week.

I tend to avoid any sort of political discussion as it pertains to the real world. I usually instead prefer to explore political topics through fiction, as it is much easier to have productive conversations about real political problems when they are applied to a fictional setting. When we talk about elves in their ivory towers looking down on humans in their slummy shacks and straw houses, a lot of the realness surrounding racial economic disparity sort of fades away and we can have a civil conversation about it. Real world political topics tend to be messy discussions, because everyone has a stake in them in some form. Everyone usually identifies with one of the groups involved or affected by the discussion, even if they aren't directly a part of that group. It is easy to form a biased opinion about a political topic on the mere illusion that we might somehow be personally affected by it in some indirect form, some day in the future. It's all just too real.

The world has become more complicated, I think, than our primitive monkey brains can even comprehend, yet, brains do as brains do, and they keep trying to figure out ways to simplify it enough so that they can process it anyway. Modern life is immensely complicated, multifaceted, and there is very rarely a clear "correct" answer that will fix every problem for every human in a way that every human will agree is "fair." To make matters worse, many people like to pretend like their one over-simplified answer to any given problem (an answer that is very often the best possible solution for their own personal gain) is the ONLY "correct" one and they are often willing to punch you to avoid hearing any evidence to the contrary. A healthy political discussion cannot exist without... you know... the discussion, so usually all that's left is just... the politics. Those talking heads that spend hours taking turns biting each others' heads off.

This is all to say that I generally distance myself from political discourse, especially when the political discord becomes unbearable (which is often if not always.) Yet I can't ignore what's going on right now in the real world. And I don't think it's very controversial or political to say that the loss of life this week is a tragedy. An entirely avoidable tragedy if not for the poor choices made by a single sad, pathetic, delusional man who sits undeservedly in the ruling seat of a powerful country.  Every single person killed or made to suffer as a direct or indirect consequence of this war is his fault. He is a man who achieved the power to change his world, and he has proven to us who he really is.

Still, I always try to look for the good, and if ever a silver lining can be applied to such an atrocity, I think it is encouraging, honestly, to see a new wave of global unification as we turn our heads to be reminded of what really matters in this world. It's as if all of our petty political fights over small percentages of approval points have suddenly been revealed to be the childish nonsense they've always been as we're faced with the threat of evil: a man killing thousands of human beings and threatening to kill millions more for some stupid political power grab he believes he alone deserves. A man who strives to violently take away the freedom of others while throwing a infantile fit when his own freedom to do whatever he pleases is challenged. We've spent the past several years comparing each other to Hitler over the slightest political disagreement. Yet here at last we have a violent, delusional dictator invading a neighboring country, unprovoked. A villain.

Honestly, I fear the worst: an escalation of war into a global conflict. Massive, pointless loss of life because one terrible man fears the freedom of others and people will have no choice but to fight to keep it from being taken away.

But I hope for the best: the prompt removal of an insane dictator from power followed by a new era of global cooperation, hopefully with minimal loss of life and a swift rebuilding of the devastated areas.

As always, I write a lot of words, and if anything I say ever sounds misinformed, ignorant, or poorly thought-out, please let me know. I pride myself on being open-minded and I am always happy to hear other people's perspectives.