War and Meaning and Wishing and Life
Sometimes I wish for things.
Sometimes I wish I’d been born in the 1890s. I wish I’d been in World War I. I wish I was a character in a Hemingway story. I would’ve fought in the war. I would’ve gotten injured - badly. When the war was over, when I was healed (physically, but not emotionally), I would visit Spain. I would fall in love. I would run with the bulls. I would fish. I would fish a lot. I would be crippled and miserable, but happy, too, and my life would have some meaning.
Sometimes I wish I’d been born in the 1920s. I wish I’d been in World War II. I wish I’d fought with Kurt Vonnegut. I wish I’d known the man, because maybe I would’ve been a character in Slaughterhouse-Five. I wish I’d been there when Dresden was firebombed. Maybe I would’ve died. Maybe I would’ve survived. Maybe I would’ve become unstuck in time. Maybe I would’ve been important, maybe I would’ve been someone who Kurt remembered fondly. Maybe I would’ve been an asshole to him, and he would’ve written bad things about me. Maybe I would’ve saved his life. Maybe my life would have some meaning.
Sometimes I wish I’d been born in the 1940s. I wish I’d been in the Vietnam war. Perhaps I’d have known Tim O’Brien. We might’ve fought together, smoked together, mourned together. I would’ve carried things. I would’ve been there when he killed that man - I could’ve comforted him. I could’ve tried to help him move on. Maybe I would’ve tripped a grenade. Maybe I would’ve been killed. Maybe I would’ve fought for a cause I didn’t believe in because, well, what other option did I have? Maybe I would’ve saved some of my friends. Maybe my life would’ve had some meaning.
Sometimes I wish we would go to war. Not like the wars we have now. An old fashioned war, though I couldn’t define that term. I wish I could. I wish I would enlist, or maybe I’d be drafted. I wouldn’t want to go. I would go to Canada. Maybe I’d come back, though. I’d go eventually. I’d go and I’d die. Or, no, maybe I’d live. I’d live and I’d write. I’d write about the war. I’d write about what it means to be human. I’d write about people and the things they do. My life would have some meaning.
Sometimes I wish these things and I scare myself. I don’t want to go to war. I don’t want to fight. And at the same time I want that desperately. I want to do something important. I want something to change, anything, and sometimes I think that fighting and killing and hoping and praying and missing the world I once knew is the only way to make that change. I want my life to have some meaning.
