Enough of the game-playing …

The HSP ease of excitation I spoke about in a recent blog shows up in many ways in me.  My central nervous system gets exhilarated in joy and agitated in upset.

This Easter weekend it’s flared in indignation and anger at the actions of those who wear religious righteousness as a badge of honour.  As they trash the world.

Here we are, contemplating a truce that isn’t a truce, announced by an aggressor who portrays himself as a man of peace.  Who makes great show of attending a religious service.  And who offers 30 hours of respite to mark Easter after leading 3 years of destruction.

That same aggressor plays like a violin the person who attends televised prayer meetings and who promised peace in a day.  The same coveter of a Nobel Peace Prize who watches another religious friend champion safe zones that aren’t safe zones and deny blockades that are blockades.

All claiming victimhood and the right to defend themselves while denying the same rights to others.  All talking values their actions contradict.  And all with power their real God.

Meanwhile, those who suffer the consequences of their actions continue to fight for their lives, their homes, their identities, their futures.  The costs are horrendous, for everyone – except it seems for those who make the decisions and run the game.

What a dilemma for Volodymyr Zelenskyy this Easter Sunday afternoon.  Caught between the ‘man of peace’ and the ‘man getting ready to pass’.  Caught in this terrible bind:

“They’re playing a game.  They are playing at not playing a game.  If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me.  I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game”

(RD Laing, ‘Knots’, 1970)

I know it’s not just HSPs who are struggling with world events.  Or who dislike game-playing and can see through it a mile off.  And I know there are many, many other sorrows and battles going on all over the world.

But, together, let’s wish continued strength to all those fighting to end game-playing, lies and false claims to the moral high ground.  To those seeking equality, an end to being characterised as something they’re not and the same rights to a normal life that others take for granted.

The world needs better.  More compassion and respect.  More peace and freedom.  More humanity over hubris.

I’m posting this a few hours before the end of the supposed truce in Ukraine.  I’d love to be proved wrong and that even a ‘truce that isn’t a truce’ can be the beginning of tangible moves towards a just peace.

But trust is earned, justice isn’t rewarding aggressors and peace isn’t only for the weekend.