Ukraine

It seems odd to me, in the midst of all the other shit going on in the world, that I somehow desperately wish I could do something, anything really, to help the protestors in the Ukraine.

I mean: Really, the only reason I would normally post on here about the Ukraine would be to talk about how smokingly hot and, well, feminine,  Ukrainian women tend to be, compared to the obnoxious and unattractive wandering shoggoths that seem to dominate the American landscape.

But no. I'm talking local politics. I'm talking real protestors, protesting real issues (unlike our homegrown morons in the Occupy movement, say...), and taking real beatdowns for their pains... again, unlike our Occupy movement, which basically was like some sort of urban jamboree. 

Why? Why would I go to a place that is currently miserably cold where I'm likely to catch a bullet in the chest for my troubles, for a country that almost literally only means 'porn' to me? 

I think in some small part it is because they are doing what we are not. They are standing up for freedom, for rights being denied. They are fighting for a better tomorrow instead of cheaper iPads and  the absolution from willfully gained debts.  Because even if their struggle is currently futile, even if this protest is doomed, I have hope for them that I don't really feel for America most days. 

Of course, it could be something else. The cynic in me tells me that I only wish to go because I stand amidst ruin at home. There is nothing here for me, no real life, no real future. I can, in the immortal words of Captain Capitalism 'enjoy the decline' and not much else.  I should be preparing my forty-five calibre retirement plan, to steal another turn of phrase from him.  Its easy then to throw myself into someone else's doomed cause, to throw away my failures rather than fight to overcome them and claim it is good work, rather than simply giving up. 

It could be a martyr complex, to put myself into danger once more with cameras running, so that maybe I'll at last have a chance to make my eternal suffering (life, for the slow kids) mean something. The easy immortality, requiring no work but only the willingness to suffer dramatically.  I can do that. Anyone can do that, really.  It requires no great talent to suffer. 

What I do know is this: Twenty years ago I would have happily thrown away everything to go, to stand there, but twenty years ago I wouldn't have cared enough to notice.  Am I not impulsive enough anymore?  Am I afraid?  Is it wisdom or cowardice to stay here, safe if not particularly comfortable? Is it courage or vanity to go? 

Call it the curse of living the life of the mind. I cannot let my instincts go unexamined, cannot let my desires go unchecked for right or wrong.  

Right now my heart screams at me to go, chanting with all the dedication of an overwrought fan seeing their favorite band live for the first time, and yet here I am... typing away instead. 

I am here, not there.  

I am wise and foolish, brave and cowardly, I am static.

And so I do nothing but stroke my own ego, making their plight my own by proxy.  

And if I go, do I not suggest that my mere presence may turn aside the tide of history? That being an American in Kiev would somehow... matter?