In Life is a Trip; I
really enjoyed Chapter 5 (Searching for Forgiveness in Vietnam) since I’m
familiar with the history of the Vietnam War and I could get a good look in its
different opinion. I believe that the author speaks from his heart in relation
that he believes there are people that still haven’t got over by the war. The
only thing I could think of this is, how not? I’ve never been through war or
any life style related to it, and I wish it continued that way. What I have
read and heard is that war is one of the most traumatizing things in the world.
You are assign a target to kill for your country thinking it is correct even
though you were taught to never kill because it’s wrong since little. I believe
in that process of changing your ideas of right and wrong, a switch in the
human must trigger or something. In some way it confuses the human being, and
torments it. Besides, it must also torment the idea of actually seeing people
suffer or even killed in front of your eyes. I guess my opinion is, that even
so people have forgiven the war, I respect those who haven’t forgive it. I
believe is a very internal process in which one may or may not recover from it.
I respect any person willing to enter in this zone, especially coming out of
it.
Nevertheless after
reading this chapter, I couldn’t get out of my head the last paragraph where it
states, “I got up and walked away from my
computer. I understood that I could spend a lifetime harboring anger and
resentment, or I could accept what happened to me and move on. It felt good to
be in the present. It felt good not to focus on the past. It felt right to
unplug from past hurts and bitterness. My trip to Vietnam inspired me and
reminded me of that”. This made my eyes grow cause it’s not something the
people of the Vietnam War can live by if not anybody can. One must open their
eyes in a set of their internal battles and decide which path to go. You can
decide whether to stay with your feelings for the rest of your life because of
something or just decide to let them go. We will always acquaintance this kind
of internal battles; it is us who decide what to do about them.
What I liked the most from your post is when you say that, a person can decide to let go of certain feelings or keep harboring them for the rest of their life. It is important to let go of negative feelings because in the long run you're not hurting anybody but yourself.
ReplyDeleteThe last bit you wrote about the quote is a bit controversial for me because I saw it more as the author's interpretation and it conflicted with the thought of HOW exactly the people of Vietnam were so easily forgiving of Americans after The War, it took them years to get to that point. It really shows the perspective of how some things are easier to forgive than others. I whole-heartedly agree with your saying of how letting go or harboring negative feelings can affect the rest of your life.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, it is an internal battle whether we want to forgive or not. We are lucky to live in such peaceful times and like you said going to war and experiencing such horrible thing must change how people view themselves and the world. Learning to forgive can be very hard and to see the people from Vietnam being able to forgive means that they have grown as people and have matured and have been able to settle their internal battle in favor of forgiveness.
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