Who’s side are you on?

Durie Hill tunnel, Whanganui, Aotearoa New Zealand. Photo by the author.

People keep asking me: 
Who’s side are you on?
Are you good or are you evil?
Are you in or out?
One of us or one of them?
Are you my friend or my enemy?

As if everything were binary and had sides

I answer

God is everywhere, having no sides
Our planet is a sphere, and has no sides
Life presses on, and keeps adapting – our DNA takes no notice of sides
Humanity is like the Mandelbrot Set – even when you think you see sides, you just need to zoom in a bit, and all you see is more fractal beauty
Peace – shalom – completion has no sides – in the end, we are all together

You want me to hate, but I want to love
You want me to label, but I’d like to explore
You want me to divide, but I seek to unite
You want me to fight, but I’d rather hug
You want me to shout, but I can only whisper

I sighed when I saw
the terror you consumed
the damage you caused
the pain you inflicted
the death you enabled
the future you nullified

So if you force me to take sides, you coercive shit –
I am on the side of peace
I am on the side of humanity
I am on the side of life
I am on the side of our planet
I am on the side of God

And it will be I and my friends that clean up your mess, repair the damage, and heal the world in a foolhardy effort to leave things slightly better than we found them

All because there were no sides as you saw them – they were an ephemeral illusion

So fuck you and your sides