Writing to Write Something

2024.03.13 

Okay, I am really just cranking this one out to keep my streak alive because I have been very good about freewriting all week. But it is difficult.

I was travelling all day from Rzeszow to Kyiv. I hired a driver to pick me up at 0100 last night/this morning, but he didn’t show up until after 0400. And the drive took much longer than expected. I don’t really understand why. We did not get stuck at the border at all (which is always a huge concern). We were there for less than an hour, on both sides – Polish and Ukrainian. But for whatever reason a drive that Google said should have taken 10ish hours ended up taking over twelve. And I was exhausted because I had not slept at all the night before. I thought I was leaving at 0100 so I determined to stay awake. But then by the time homeboy messaged me to say he was going to be late, it was way too late to go to sleep. So, I stayed awake until 0400. I tried to sleep in the white Mercedes mini-bus (which was very nice) but it never really happened.

While we were driving, I was listening to an audiobook about Machiavelli. I have never really read the Discourses on Livy and I didn’t realize how different that book is to The Prince. I think Machiavelli had arrived at the same conundrum I have recently arrived at, namely, if a state can only be established through force, and there can be no justice prior to the state, every state is a built on a foundation that can never be brought up to builders’ code. There is really no way out of this problem, as far as I can tell. You can lead a perfectly just republic but the act that created that republic must necessarily have been an unjust assertion of power by one over all others. This is basically the problem the world is confronted with now. Strongmen are imposing themselves on dysfunctional systems and there is not really an argument you can make against that. Donald Trump tearing up the US constitution is just as “legitimate” as the founding fathers revolting against British rule.

Anyways, I am back in Kyiv now. I am staying at a commie block flat tonight but will check into the barracks tomorrow morning. I started working on a Canadian history course this evening. It is predictably boring. But I am hoping it will inform my thinking about foreign and defence policy. I am circling around some kind of insight. But I am not sure what it is. All I know is, the world is changing radically and rapidly, and Canada can’t keep up. I am hopeful that if I figure out what the changes mean, I’ll be able to help my country survive. A grandiose plan, to be sure, but I don’t see anyone else trying to make sense of it all.