We’re in the finishing stages of a big project at the moment, which is why I’ve been so busy at work, and it’s wearing me down a bit. It’s wearing me down even more than the plain workload would account for, as the project is for the medical services of the Norwegian armed forces. I’m not really uncomfortable with it as such, the medical services, though supporting services to the military, being a very non-agressive and humanitarian sort of unit. There are issues, of course, it’s hard to reconcile the work entirely with a reasonably firm belief that non-violence is the answer in most conflicts, but then I’m not so much of a pacifist that I am opposed to Norway having a military force for defence purposes. However, what with the current situation, “defence” is looking dangerously like it might turn into “attack”. And that I am not comfortable with. And it’s wearing me down. Quite possibly my emotional self is not as reconciled as my intellectual self, emotional logic having a life of its own. Or quite possibly the problem is that I am finding it impossible to forget the current situation even when lost in work because of the connection. The conversation at lunch today did not help in the least – I am getting hyper-sensitive, and I’d really prefer not to envision what our system might and might not be used for over the next few months or years in addition to its original purpose (which is simply to log the medical details of conscripted soldiers and military staff during peace time). I’ve seen too much M*A*S*H (if there is such a thing as too much M*A*S*H). I’ve read too many books where operating rooms in wartime figure vividly. I have too active an imagination to bear the thought of what even a small-scale conflict is going to do to the people of Iraq with any sort of equanimity, never mind full-on war.
Couldn’t we all just be friends?