Order Over Chaos

Just some things I was feeling about something I saw on the news.

The interviewer says “you didn’t watch the interview, and neither did I. I don’t want that image in my mind”. Impressed. Creased into his being. “Neither do I" the other man says, "but thats not why I did it. I want to Remember him for the person who he was”. And not for the way that he was killed. 

How? Is the only word I find myself able to say. I dared myself and followed through with it. I saw the video, the theatrics of Obama speaking with the creepy Islamist music numbing my mind into submission, eclipsed only by the awkward perception that that this is surprisingly high quality video and editing work.

The whole thing had a surrealism to it. Is this indeed what my eyes are seeing? This is what it appears to be, but a part of me wants to take it as CGI, as presentation. The media era we live in has somewhat taken away the quality of shock: the profound physical effect of seeing what you know you’re seeing. A picture. A video, can’t quite give you that realtime affect of utter horror, a deep and utter sense of helplessness to what you’ve just observed. You feel what you know: it’s just a picture or a video. 

As the interview unfolds, I become distracted by the thought of the picture; his head, angled on his body towards the camera: proof of the final work. I go to google and type in the name, which to me means the image, seared into my psyche. To see again, to understand if I can, what has happened and why it was done. 

My need to look and make sense of it all is borne from a confusion - a fundamental sense of incongruity - that emerges from my being different, in a different place and a different society: the world of the west, in a suburb of Toronto, to an upper middle class family, to a father and mother who taught me to represent the world to myself as a reasonable place. Watching this video and actually cognizing what it means shatters that continuity, that feeling of sureness, that people can be trusted. In the cradle of civilization the world is burning and in my world no one seems to care. 

Another part of me keeps thinking about the guy. I look at his face again and again and watch him as he reads off the words he's is being told to read. Where is he? Why does he do this for them? To avoid being gunned down? To salvage some dignity. One thing I know is that the guy reading these words seems absent in some way. He's there. He seems proud. But the reality of his predicament cannot be allowed to enter his perception.

Can you imagine? No. I can’t though my imagination allows me to see. And from there I can know something. Did he think of what would happen to him? His death - possibly by beheading? He had to think about this and even plan for how he would be able to deal with.  What would he have to do to bring his mind at ease? His rosary. He prayed the rosary day and night, dozens of times a day, his mind came in and out of being, in and out of embodiment. His mind became the reality of the Rosary. His self evaporated into the eternal oneness of God. Yet around him are killers. People who intend to murder him. He knows being decapitated by them is a very real possibility. And his body is terrified if he lets himself think about it. 

He remembers how he came to this part of the world with good intentions. With a desire to help those who had been born - not of their choice - in a land where probability had destined them to for chaos and insability; the ancientness, the poverty, the division of religions, had made it this part of humanity ill prepared to deal with the paradigm shifts of the modern world; with secularization, with humanization, with a common will. 

He came here to help, to document for the world, for us living in the west, what actually happened to people in the world outside our comfortable internet wired houses. As he sits there and allows these contemplations of his life to be felt he recognizes their own path: towards their own resolution. For whatever reason, he is where he is. And for a reason he can’t quite comprehend, he knows he can handle it. 

His head is shaved and he’s brought on a long trek across the desert from the oasis town where he was being kept. On the car ride his heart is banging within him and the sheer color of the orange gown in connection with the brightness and heat of the sun at midday is  putting him into a state of reverie. Oneness pervades his experience. His body feels like “a body” - his mind is away from it and he’s feeling a profound calm and peace with the reality that likely lies ahead. 

The car stops, cameras are set up. The guys are talking to one another in Arabic and he stays to himself, not reflecting on what he hears, but looking at the sky. The brightness of the blue. The impression of the light along the sandy dunes. He feels at one with it all. With existence - all of its subsumed and entangled by this bright mist of light. The men stop talking, one of them comes towards him and brings him out in front of the camera. His mind is brought back into the present. Into whats in front of him and who’s beside him and what he has in his hand. 

He talks to the camera and he hears words and he’s told to read whats written across from him. He’s now being forced to juggle realities. To somehow reconcile what he just experienced on the ride in the desert with the terror laden reality that lays ahead of him. Nerves tickle at the surface as he reflects, but then he remembers again the world that he stayed in, felt peace in, and he sits himself there as the fleshy part of himself robotically intones the words flashed before him. 

Two parts angling for reality. He senses the completion, he senses the masked man with the knife coming behind him, and he feels his head pulled back. Time slows down. The suns brightness feels so alive. And he feels the cut, the spurt of blood gushing out, in a single moment, he felt it all melt away: his body, his life. Into the sun and into the brightness.

His consciousness retracts from its persistence and the blood that passes to the brain pours out through the cut open jugular. But the masked man continues cutting. Straining the knife through the muscle, through the throat, the esophagus, reaching the upper vertebra and breaking through it, through the awakeness of brain stem and awareness itself. Life is gone. The man who was has ceased to be. And the killer, vaingloroious and pompous, wipes the knife clean of the dead mans blood, bends down to pick up the decapitated head of the man he murdered, and places it on the dead mans back as propaganda. 

And that was it. The sadness. The rage I feel. The desperate need to make sense and order in this crazy world, jaded by the acts of people who believe wholeheartedly in the righteousness of their cause. 

In the stillness the sun keeps shining. The life that was lost, flickers in the light of the day. The life that resolved itself to that final act. All of it is contained within that luminescent brightness of human optimism. Sureness about the rightness of the human mission in a world full of peril and hope. 

To bring light. To widen the minds of others who’ve been darkened by the harsh realities of their ancestral past. To heal the wounds of ages past. To bring Order Over Chaos. 

Reviews

[AprilRN1210]

I really enjoyed reading this.. It is so refreshing to read something that isn't superficial and self indulgent... the meaning is clear and moving.. You write really well.. I was immersed the whole time and felt like I was there... I cannot believe you don't have a ton of reviews for this... This is the first piece of yours I have read, and it makes me excited to see what else you have... I noticed a few grammatical errors, but overall, this is excellent work... if you don't mind, I would like to send a RR to a few of my friends, who I think will enjoy this.. again, awesome job...

[Bill O. Writes]

You know me well enough I suppose, April. This was amazing thanks for the RR.

[Mike Defreitas]

Thank you April.

I follow whats going on in the middle east and in general I show an interest in making the world a better place. But then stuff like this happens, beheadings, Foley, Sotloff. And I'm shocked by it. These guys go there from an entirely different paradigm and self experience from the people who make up ISIS. It's a clash between two types of human beings and human realities. And it's just tragic.

We can talk about how evil and deranged and backwards Islamism/Salafism is, but that doesn't do justice to the reality of what were seeing. Even this piece I wrote, which tried to get into Foleys mind and make sense of the peace and resolve I saw on his face. That says something important, about the culture and civilization he comes from. But It's also important to remember the trauma that these Muslim are living in. As hard as that is, and I as troubling as it feels. I want to capture the two mind states of the two people interacting in this surreal world.

I truly do hope that I have done something good for the spirit of James Foley...by recognizing the strengths he had to access to find himself able to open up to what laid ahead of him. It seemed mystical, consuming, for him to speak and say what he did, with the tone and composure of his voice and posture. I wanted to write about it to say that I saw it: I bore witness to his final act, to his final strength.

I made mistakes, typos, etc, but I am thankful that you recognized where I wrote this piece from.

As for the killer, I am bemused. I know a lot about the Islam he subscribes to. I can understand why it would seem appealing to him, from his vantage point and his upbringing. And yet I feel within my marrow that he is absolutely wrong and lost in a perspective of the world that is psychologically obtuse and existentially horrifying.

I hope people can see this and not jump to conclusions about Muslims. In a way, this worldview appeals to them because they have no defenses against accepting it. As disgusting as that is, they're ignorant of their malevolence.

People are people. A muslim growing up in the west is mostly innoculated from that worldview (clearly not totally, since thousands have gone and travelled to Syria from the west).

Anyways. Thanks for the extremely kind words. Its very encouraging :)

[AprilRN1210]

you did an amazing job with this piece and I did understand where you were coming from... I applaud you for this write, and like I said have shared with a few of my friends who, I think will enjoy this just as much... people are people, I couldn't agree more!!!
and thanks Bill!! I thought you might like it.. thank you for reading sir... :)

[MoriartyMesa]

Hesiod wrote along the same lines that your work represents, 8th B.C. to 2014 A.D. And in this you had the same eye. A lot of people can credit H.G. Welles, but you brought a great ancient theory (that was true in the old times) into the 21 century.

[Bill O. Writes]

Loved this work. I have watched be headings in the past and after about two I was done with them. It's all the same gruesome scene. I feel so horrible that good people just trying to do their job need to die because of some sick agenda. You nailed his likely thought process in him juggling thoughts. These guys that get beheaded probably are in shock and don't think straight because their mind is racing.

I've had this conversation with a couple other people that asked why I thought they were never begging to be spared or crying. It's likely because of the brain going haywire. It's a disgusting world sometimes.

Amazing job here.