Nobody Cares

People move to Seattle by the hordes, trying to get back nature. On the weekends every last one of them heads for the mountains. It was nearly impossible to find a place to park at the trailheads. I bumped into more people on the trails than at the mall. I tried to get away from them by going cross-country but after a hundred yards of hacking through underbrush I was so tangled in vines I could barely move. I joined the masses back on the trail. I longed for my glacier-swept Sierras where I could saunter in any direction across smooth granite.  

On one backpack trip while in Seattle, I spent a long, hard day hiking to Big Heart Lake. When I arrived, the camping area was covered with tents. I hunted around  and found a semi-secluded spot behind a tree. After pitching my tent, I sat down to make dinner. The mosquitos were so thick I had to wear a net over my head and gloves on my hands. I felt like an astronaut in a space suit. To eat, I shoved food through the net into my mouth, trying not to let mosquitos in.

            The buzz was deafening, not so much because of its volume as because of the rapacious intent it signified. Selfish little bastards! Swarms of ‘em, all wanting a piece of me. In place of a “thank you”they left an itchy welt. I studied the little vampires crawling and poking at my outstretched legs, trying to pierce my nylon pants. A dozen gathered in a clump and I unleashed a murderous swat. It was satisfying and pointless. What’s infinity minus 12? 

The next day, I stopped along the trail for lunch. As I munched trail mix in the warm sun, I admired bees buzzing around brightly colored flowers. Like mosquitoes, they would sting, but only if I threatened, and the attack would cost their lives. That seemed more than fair. Plus, I could see the point of bees. They pollinated flowers. But at the core, they were just like mosquitoes, hungry for pollen instead of blood. How was I any different? Didn’t I like to sink my teeth into a juicy steak? There was no escaping it. Hunger, not love, makes the world go ‘round. Or maybe love is another word for hunger.

I felt this in Seattle traffic. I consider myself a kind and benevolent soul but if some fool races past me and tries to squeeze in at the last second, I leave no gap. I stare straight ahead as they honk and beg for an opening. Not on my watch! 

One evening I was at the Seattle airport, studying cars as they swarmed around the few remaining parking spaces. Their fronts looked like the mouths of locusts. They said, “Move it or lose it!” Evidently, when God commanded Adam to kill and eat, he hit “Cc All.” We are all  cursed with teeth and appetite. Our lives are an episode of the Hunger Games.

I called this third Specter Rapax. Rapax was the hardest to face because it destroyed my most cherished illusion: that I am a good and loving person and that there are other good and loving people who put me before themselves. But every motion in the universe is fueled by desire. It’s as inescapable as gravity. Love is just desire masquerading as virtue.

My old friends genuinely cared about me but their desire was to restore me to my Christian faith. Without that, I was anathema to them. As for my parents, how could I be anything but an offense if I told them that all their years of dutifully taking me to church had led me down the wrong path? Julie deserves a medal for sticking by my side. But even she had her limits. Our meager retirement savings gave her nightmares of dying in a rancid nursing home and being tossed in an unmarked grave. She held true to the wedding vow—“for richer or poorer”—but it wouldn’t go on forever. It was time to get my act together.

In church I used to preach about unconditional love but I never met a parishioner without an agenda. If that agenda went unmet, they complained. If that didn’t work, they packed up and left. And what about God? God was the worst of all: anyone who failed to accept his Son burned in hell. There were three deep deceptions: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these was love. Love always failed. Again, I found the words of a children’s song on my lips. 

        Nobody loves me, everybody hates me,
Guess I’ll go eat worms.

The death of love was even harder than losing my faith. It left me alienated from everyone and everything, even myself.  When I judged people for failing to live up to my standard of love, I felt awful. My world shrunk because I cut them out of it. By refusing to love my enemies, I loved no one. In the Hunger Games, everyone is an enemy.   

There was a way out, though. I didn’t have to judge. I could stop condemning people for being what I am and extend compassion. In a crazy world, how does it make sense to condemn people for being crazy? We are all stuck in the same hopeless situation which none of us created or chose. Our common curse is our deepest bond. Judging comes naturally but leaves me miserable and on my own. I have a choice. I can stretch out my arms in compassion. I can treat people with kindness. This expands my world and feels wonderful. It’s not that I am a good person. I am as selfish as ever. I choose compassion, not because I am better, but because it is.