Struggle!

"Attack!"
05-29-13
watercolor, crayon, colored pencil

When I drew as a young boy, I would make pictures of battle scenes. There were tanks, planes, warships, cannons, guns and helmeted soldiers. Later, flying saucers and aliens would be the bad guys. On paper, the outcome was always certain. But given a new sheet of paper, the struggle began anew… complete with sound effects!
I suppose it's a "boy" thing. We were so innocent of the real Cold War dangers and the nuclear chess games going on in the 1960s. I remember JFK's funeral on TV; it was all a dream because it happened in childhood.

Sometimes I feel as if I'm still dreaming, still deluded by my own sense of uniqueness and an elemental innocence.
I think that if reincarnation were "real" (it is in a way, as I see it) Innocence would have slowly leached out of human experience because there would be an accumulated knowledge of the costs of all forms of violence.
But boys continue to play with guns or dream of being heroes and of dying on the battlefield. And, I presume, girls worked out their own struggles by more subtle, but no less destructive and innocent means.
Why is life a struggle? I guess that's the question I leave you with.
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Have a peaceful and fun day. Love the ones you're with in body and spirit. Smell the roses, they're everywhere!