Our species was trained up on a certain brand of cooperation between individuals of clans or tribes, and so it remains to this day. At the core of our being is a need to be social, even for those who insist on being solitary or even anti-social.
I reckon that even those who hate other people so much as to act out in hurtful or even violent ways are acting on a hard-wired urge to interact, though on a dysfunctional level.
As a teacher of "at-risk" youth, I've watched a couple of generations of teenagers go through their phases of group-enabled and codified rebellion; the collective aspects of their deep will to seek antisocial pleasure with a bunch of friends is a wonder to behold. One can extend the strangeness of collective will from the small to the very largest group.
In our little town, the collective glue that welds the greater community together is the LDS church, both socially and religiously. Some are members of the church for only social and traditional reasons, much like any other religion. In my observation, those more secular reasons are at least as important as those spiritual and religious.
One who dedicates themself to the life of an active member of an LDS community is given over to much sacrifice and, at least on an outward level, service. Such a person teaches, works, collaborates, studys and worships together. They profess a common framework of beliefs and subject themselves to a mutual organization of authority. The social benefits of cleaving to the group are many and when one is unable for one reason or another to do so, the sanctions can be felt on many levels, some not readily observable or fully understandable.
Those sanctions and those who sanction are difficult to deal with. Nevertheless, as I ruminate on those who mete out the often subtle sanctions to those who stray from or resist subjugation to the church, I have a very rough time condemning them for their actions and attitudes. Their behavior stems from the same deep seated social inheritances that enable religious and other benevolent institutions. They don’t mean to be exclusive or mean, they are only attempting to conserve the finite social and real means of the collective for those who exhibit behavior befitting belief and membership. It’s truly difficult to love the enemy within the community; they are those who might waste the community trust.
It doesn’t make those who find themselves outside of the church feel much better, but it is likely how they act toward those within the church, in one way or another. The same instinct toward conserving the bulwarks of the church preserves those on the outside of the church, as well.
What can be done to bring us together? I don’t know. Logic extends this situation within our little burg to the greater problems in our nation and world. The same instincts that preserve our communities and hence, our species seem to condemn it to perpetual war and fervor or apathy toward those who would wage it. We only seek to preserve the stasis of permanence perceived within local and extended communities.

A description of the day in Haiku:

A drive to Salt Lake
a long trip made longer still-
lack of desire.

partly a success:
the Springbar will be fixed
end of November.

Nice carpenters with
lucrative contracts in Driggs
too involved to help me.

people drove me mad
rushing hurriedly around
I did what I needed.

Not eating 'til late
head pounding, blurry vision
silly me, sick boy.

moving here and there
No people, just possessions
I limped home at dark.

Not the best caesuras or other traditional form, but hell. This isn't the academy of the farging arts.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, things keep happening.
A warning: this is some bad-ass, crazy good writing about the awful things that we keep happening to ourselves..

Early in the morning, as Orion and the Pleiades fade from the their course in the western sky, there aren't many people stirring. While the mountains and their residents awaken with song and different sorts of silence, the humans are begrudgingly rising from their bedclothes with bleary eyes and muttered curses.
I've been outside for weeks at a time in the mountains and deserts of Utah and Wyoming, and one thing that I've noticed is the difference in the way that residents of the outside wake up from that of denizens of the 'inside' world.
Most are familiar with birds that awaken as much as an hour before first light to chatter and call, mostly during summer months. I have a six or seven year old rooster who does just that every morning. He is quite enthusiastic about every new day, so stoked in fact that he announces each with a rousing call and reveille that permeates two windows and adobe walls.
I have laid awake during many of his solar predictions. Sometimes I have been quite annoyed, almost to the point of wringing his neck and making a stew of him, in fact. I never acted upon that, and in part because of that, I have enjoyed the opposite emotion while listening to his calls, as well.
Sleeping out in the Waterpocket fold area of southern Utah, in the surrounding mountains and many other instances in the Yellowstone area, I remember the zest and seeming abandon with which wild birds and animals greet each new day. The enthusiasm of those animals was much like that of old Joe the rooster, and I was left at times to reflect upon my own lack of joy at the coming dawn, or for that matter, the dawn that might have begun hours before.
I know that I am very far from alone in my attitude. How many people do you know who rue each morning of the work week? How many human beings are there who "drag" their bodies out of bed with curses for their job and the shortness of the night before? I know far too many, and I am one of them much of the time.
It hasn't always been this way. When I was a child, I would rise before my mother could catch me in the morning after my father had left for work and go to one of my friend's houses to rouse them for play. I remember more than once one of their parents meeting me at the door, barefoot and in their pajamas to tell me that their son hadn't awakened yet, and nor had their parents. I loved the morning.
Later on, I would sneak out of my house far before the dawn to walk about the neighborhood and creekbeds about my house. I would sometimes knock on friend's windows to ask them to join me or just talk about things. Others times I would pick rosebuds from yards on my way to strew in girlfriend's window sills or wells. I really did love the morning.
The light seemed so much more hopeful, the scents so much more clear and meaningful in the morning before and as the sun came up.
Listening to the dogs awaken and bark at each other was almost as beautiful as those bird's songs. Imagine that statement with reference to any other time during the day or night. Sure.
I had a great friend who would at times indulge my morning fetishes. Once we took a hike to a place called Elephant Rock, just up the canyon from where we lived. We began before it was light and breakfasted upon cereal and milk from our packs when we got to the promontory. As we watched the light fill the forest and canyon, I remember no words being said, but I remember quite a few smiles and deep breaths taken.
Suffice to say, I have many good memories of the morning tide, with a great many golden people. Where has that 'joi de vivre' gone? I can write at length to that point, and much would touch a great many tender nerves. Much would be trite or all-too common as well, such as that speaking to the common plight of the worker.
I must lay a great deal of blame at the feet of what I see as a continuing alienation from what the dawn chorus represents, a disconnect from the natural world and what gave birth to my very soul. Most of my center is what many would call idealism or a certain detachment from reality, so disconnect might be unavoidable as long as I hold to that sense of self.
The natural world seems to be happy to meet the new day. I am happy to take this lesson in anew every twenty four hours or so, and thanks to old Joe and my memories, I have begun to rise a little earlier as often as I may to walk and smell, and listen.
I need to awaken inside, as well as outside. It's a treat to watch my children and sweetheart sleep their dreams in the twilight, breathing easy just before the light rouses them. They don't sing like the birds or the rooster, but I love their serene faces more than I can express.
I'm enjoying the morning a little more these days.

In an earnest attempt to get to a little round lake on the lee of Thousand Lakes Mountain, we came into direct contact with the affects of a recent rain and snowstorm in the desert.
Trundling around in a search for a road we knew went to the lake, we found gullies and ruts where there were none in any previous trip. Finally, and quite predictably, a gullied wash faced our little transport. We knew we were foiled without at least an hour's work with shovels we didn't have, so we turned around and revised our plans.
With red rock and high desert all around feeding our senses with ripe-peach like gulps, we decided to follow a track neither of us had traveled the length of. With shadows still long and the light still full of the morning, we talked of politics and beauty, tyranny and hope until we saw an odd set of tracks heading off to the side of the road.
"What's up with that?" was the nonchalant and collective query. We drove on fair oblivious. That's not really new, though.
When faced with another ten-foot tall gully, the reason for the tracks clicked. Backing up, we again realized that we might be on another of our fool's errands, but it sure was great to be out.
After gingerly following the short sidetrack to its terminus at the other side of the hazard, we drove on, watching for signs of detour. Consulting the GPS for further clues in contour lines and projected route, I was less-than-delighted to see that the confounded device had dropped the very map that we were about to cross into. Entering blue gridwork signifying 'insufficient information' at the other side of the electronic fount of topography on the display, we had to kick dirt with our boots and scoop with our hands several more times with very little warning past our God-given field of vision. A couple of times we scouted the road past flood washes and debris fields, perhaps just as it ought to be when out exploring the beloved desert. Silly electronic crutches, anyhow.
What we saw and touched while on the way back to a paved highway brought joy to the hearts of the travelers. We ambled the thirty miles at a leisurely pace, vagabonds for beauty every step of the way, though near the end we knew that the whole thing had taken much more time than our dear wives back home had budgeted. I'm sure payment in full will be extracted in due time from our repentant, though for short while, fulfilled hearts.

I've no real experience at war or like bloodshed, but this, one of the most well-known poems from the First World War, speaks well what I feel:

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

-Wilfred Owen

*Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country

Wilfred Owen died in combat just six days prior to the armistice that ended that particular war. He is a man who has my deepest respect.

Driving along the road this morning toward Manti and my day's labor, I was joined by John Denver.
There are many who think that J.D. was a sap, writing sentimental lyrics and maudlin music. I am not one of those people. I miss the man greatly, I miss his influence in the world and his mixture of idealism and feeble humanity.
I know that he was just a man, but his talent was to speak the hearts of those who hope for something better from ourselves. He was very human and full of foibles and weakness, including an apparent lack of foresight in not checking the fuel level in his airplane, but he had an ability to sing about things that matter; love, wilderness, relationships, yearning and hope.
The sun came up brightly this morning, illuminating the cold mountains in gold. As the music played, I glanced at my little thermometer with a trailing outside probe; it read 18.8 degrees Fahrenheit. The solution of alcohol and other distillates did very little to melt the frost from the windshield, but I had the hope of gasoline fire derived heat in the next few minutes.
As my mind played on the mountains and hills to each side of our valley, I couldn't help but notice the people whizzing past me in their shiny new cars, many with pristine and untried fourwheelers and other toys strapped to trailers or beds. They wore expressions fairly identical to those without accoutrements of recreation, hurriedly passing me as I struggled to keep advancing southward toward my job. There were also farmers and their helpers in their fields on either side of the road, continuing their preparation for the next season, thinking their thoughts and getting things done.
As John Denver sang Sweet Surrender, I drove through Ephraim. Cars were more numerous and darting, though the people outside of those cars seemed less numerous than in the fields. A frantic sense of purpose runs deep in the human race, whether real or imagined, wholesome or entirely frivolous, and the cars with blank faces attest to that. These days, most of our purpose leans toward money and its acquisition.
In Ephraim, that is obvious. I am involved in education and have many friends who teach at Snow College in Ephraim. In our collective experience, most of those who go to school these days pay exorbitant amounts of the stuff into the coffers at the promise that even more exhorbitant amounts of money will be their eventual award at the end of their "education." Few hope or work for anything else but money, any more. Well, other than the hope of some sort of fame, which is even more fleeting.
The road between Ephraim and Manti was long, if only because my foot lacked initiative to push my little Toyota past 45 mph. The light streamed into the valley through canyons in great amber gushes as steam rose from ditches and streams wending their way toward the Sanpitch River to the west. The Mighty Tushars rose from their base next to the Sevier to the south and I fought temptation as mighty as those moutains to drive past the right-hand turn that would take me to the girl's residential treatment center where I endeavor to teach English and Arts and Humanities among other struggles.
My foot found its way to the brake as my hands worked other contraptions that guided me toward work nevertheless. At work, I cannot see the light shining on the valleys or the mountains anymore, only that which seeps through the shades on the windows that look out to the city's dump to the north.
With or without all of his flaws, John Denver is not appreciated here and nor are most of my odd ideas of beauty, love or hope. I keep on trying in my own imperfect way, though.