Adam Oster, Novelist

I’ve been a little hesitant to spend much time thinking about the current situation in the Ukraine. Not that I don’t care. It’s a big deal. War is always a big deal, and it feels like the world is always at war, even if we haven’t officially had a world war since the 40s. And I’m a pacifist, so, I really hate the idea of war in general, even if I’ll allow that there are probably some times in which we, as a country, may need to go to war to defend either ourselves or those who are in trouble.

In other words, I support stopping Russia.

But, at the same time, I don’t know if I have the mental bandwidth to care much about it at the moment. I do, don’t get me wrong. I care a whole lot. But getting invested has been troublesome for me. Here I am, a guy who has watched the world, and especially our country, tear itself apart, mostly due to political differences, and has found himself at his emotional wits end trying to understand how far people will go to make their point on something as little as being required to wear a mask, and now I see a country being torn apart by literal war, by another country who believes they hold some claim to the land they are now invading. And I just don’t know that I have it in me.

Which, I guess, might be part of the point.

When I first saw the reports that Russia was going to invade the Ukraine, my immediate thought was, c’mon Putin, haven’t we had enough lately? Like, is fighting a global pandemic not enough for us all to deal with, do you really need to do this now?

And after some thought, I’m realizing this might exactly be why he’s gone this route. For a world that has been torn apart by political strife, and a populace which is generally exhausted by it, now might be the very time to commit some horrendous atrocities, because people like me are just too darn overwhelmed with all the things that have happened over these past 2+ years, not to mention everything before the pandemic came along.

Which means I need to care. I have to care, even if I really don’t want to deal with this mentally right now. I want the world to feel some semblance of peace, and if it takes ignoring a violent conflict to do so, I find myself wanting to do it. But we can’t. We can’t ignore things like this. We can’t ignore a madman taking violent means to gain power.

But that doesn’t make it any less exhausting.

I stand with the Ukraine, and I hope that this can be ended soon. But I also really want to find a moment where I can feel as if all is right with the world. Just a moment.