69) Necessary Evil

With the two Koreas tense after an exchange of artillery gunfire, alot of my friends (myself included) are inclined to be subconsciously afraid of world war three. North Korean military is no joking matter, especially when nuclear weapons are thrown into the equation.

Now that the U.S. carrier George Washington is in the Yellow Sea to help South Korea perform military maneuvers, both sides have their guns locked and loaded. It's no longer a matter of who fires first, for we already know that. It's a matter of who has more restraint.

Let's not forget that the North Korean throne has just passed to Kim Jong Il's younger son, Kim Jong Un. Will this younger leader show military restraint, or we he finally take the first step to reunify Korea in a bloody conflict? For the sake of the world, let's hope he makes the right choice.

And hence we arrive to my conclusions on war:

It is a necessary evil. Hundreds and thousands of years of war has not quelled the human instinct for violence. It sure as hell isn't going to stop soon. World peace is an idealist illusion formed out of hope, hope which is dimming by the second.

I hold this hope too. That one day world peace can occur. But for the moment, we're not ready. We're not ready until the entire world perishes in a nuclear fire, not until we understand that our capacity for hostility is the greatest setback to the utopias we try to build for ourselves.

Let's face it: without war, we have no way to gauge our appreciation for peace. We would not know the cost, the value, the beauty of pacifism. We cannot deprive the world of it's outlet for innovation and bravery.

Of course, it's more than valid to argue that the cost in lives is not worth it.

Which is why I always remember a little thing I wrote:

If humanity is not immortal,
And death is never rare,
Why fear the end,
Or how we get there?

But that's just me and my pessimism. For those who still believe in the notion of world peace, I encourage you to never stop trying.

But if tomorrow we die in a nuclear firestorm, I won't fear it. Not because I saw it coming, but because I understood why it happened.

That's worth a helluva lot when you're talking about human nature.