Buber 19

 

Does motive matter? Something such as a need or desire we wish not to share but to know, so it stops. Motive is repetition; its end is motiveless. That it is another person’s need or desire matters only insofar as it might be our own. Rage marries depression and they bear an ugly soul. Hatred marries an automatic weapon and enters the bloodstream, sheds it. That’s what gets blurred out of our images. We’re most disturbed by clips that contain no violence, only preamble. Preamble might be thought, or it might be a shallow intake of air. An officer is down; another hides behind a planter. If we didn’t hate the shooter beforehand, we do now, watching to see glass shatter. The moment of rage restrained by a bullet to the head, leaving waves that catch inside our bodies. Yet whoever hates directly is closer to a relation than those who are without love and hate.

The relation of woman to tree approaches love, as on a highway around a central wound. Rainbow sap extends its bouquet, as Eucalyptus also gives its scent. Perfumes are made of such, and decongestants. Eucalyptus is the strong silent type; the woman prefers words, but never uses them in his vicinity. (If you don’t talk about your relationship, I read, it might never change.) Bullets are syllabics, unalliterative. The tree is quiet, holds its silences together. We all want beauty, the photographer says, even the tract homes in morning light, when they luminesce in rows. To take the photo removes their ugliness. That is troublesome, says the critic, but not so the mirror. It takes light in and casts it out in equal measure. You catch it on the rebound, seeing yourself on the stage of a country store, standing before paper cups and bottles of Coke. Outside, a machine makes a “fried chicken” balloon dance, and a dog barks behind a boarded up window. The old sign hangs sideways; painted letters in an old font next to a banner that shows us what we’re famous for, not so much who we are. Bright blue ocean, held to the storefront by a rusted screw. I leave with chicken, sushi, and photographs.

Relation is less intensity than extension. Extension is compassion, not vitriol. I hate the shooter but I know them as someone very like myself. Arriving at a hostel after a night on the train, I detested those who ate their bread and jam, knowing I had eight hours of walking ahead of me. I did not have a gun.