Old Conversation With My Mother About War:

Me: Mother, please don't kill that bug.

My Mother: Jessica, you have got to be motherfucking kidding me.

Me: Well, they have a right to be here, too.

My Mother: Crawling up my leg?

Me: You know there’s a religion in India where the people don't even kill mosquitoes.

My Mother: Well I assure you, if they lived here, they would flee the fold and buy a fly swatter.

Me: If you say so.

My Mother: Listen Jessica. I really do admire your pacifism, but darling, if some creature who carries disease is about to bite you, then you squash the motherfucker. I’m not saying you go out and get a machete and whack every bug in the world. But if it’s on your body and about to sink it's fangs into your flesh, you get rid of it. And the same goes for humans, Jessica.

Me: What?!

My Mother: Not every single human deserves to live in the world. I know you don’t like to hear that. I know you grew up around a bunch of dismissing jackasses and you’re rebelling by wanting to be the opposite and see the good in everyone, ok? But there are wretched beings who have gone way beyond the stage of being rehabilitated. And yes, it is sad that they fell through the cracks so deeply, and yes it’s a shame when people with potential become so out of control without any checks and balances, but when they harm innocent people, they must be removed from society.

Me: But how can you tell which people are so bad they shouldn’t have the right to live in the world?

My Mother: (sigh) Well, Jessica, because you have completely exhausted me and my poor aching brain can come up with no better example at the moment, I'm going to have to do Hitler. So when someone like Hitler has become the leader of his world and has his people putting other people into ovens and concentration camps, you do not fly to Germany, knock on his door and give him a giant hug and tell him how you know he must be hurting bad to inflict such torture, how you understand he must have had a horrible childhood and that maybe your hug will open his dismal heart to the light and he will want to pay it forward and apologize to all those poor Jews. No honey. You send in the troops and you bomb the shit out of the evil and you save the victims. So do you get what I mean now? Evil is not someone who disagrees with you or steals your purse or your dignity. Evil is someone who tortures others because they have figured out in their sick minds that it’s the right thing to do.

Me: But I hate the idea of war. It uses so many resources and becomes just as corrupt as the evil guys.

My Mother: Well then, if you want to prevent war, Jessica, this is what you do. You make sure that in your presence, the voice of compassion is always louder than the voice of hate. That means every time you hear someone spewing any hate, you do not under any circumstances spew hate back. Never. You be brave and you do not take it personally - instead you be calm and immediately balance the hate with something kind. You go into your own vast collection of personal experiences and you share something amazing that changed your life for the better about the sort of people they’re hating. If everyone does this, the compassion spreads and there's less chance of a fucking lunatic taking over and giving a big fat voice to other hateful people.

Me: Maybe you're right

My Mother: Of course I'm fucking right. You don’t do hate. And if someone disagrees with you, or insults what you hold dear to your heart, you don’t do anger either. You understand that everyone has a right to their reality so long as they are not torturing innocent people. And in my case, I save my anger for the idiots who text and drive while I’m trying to cross the motherfucking street. Then I use my voice for the stage and I shout, “Wake up, you motherless fuck!”

-JLK