wisdom

From the cool and unforgiving darkness can be heard the tapping of immortal things gently pressing at my window. A false reality, painted ever so thickly on the world, dripping with deceit and acidulous contempt confuses the masses. The exigencies of these relentless creatures unhinge me as I patiently await the inevitable.

The inquisition continues… a catharsis of calumniation cleansing away misrepresentation. I fall silent. I remain silent. Waiting for the truth to wash away the malodorous paints to reveal the forgotten masterpiece. Beneath it all, lies an epic adventure into the unknown.

But the facts still remain: “I hear no words whispered in my ear. I see no visions of the future. I carry no keys, maps or objects of significant importance. Light does not shine from my soul. Clocks tick regularly when I am near them. Oceans and beasts do not tremble in my presence. My words do not charm snakes, change lives or divine the future. I do not know the location of the lost city or where to find your hidden treasures. I am mortal and impermanent.”

However, I do know what I want. I do know who you are …and I do know why you are here.

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I want to believe that there is goodness in the world. I want to believe that compassion, love, forgiveness, nurturing and peace rule above all else. I want to believe that humans are innately kind, gentle and wish to share love with each other. I want to believe that there is happiness to be had by everyone. I want to believe that hate, greed, jealousy, rancor and all things horrible are fiction or at least a thing of the distant past. I want to believe in friendship. I want to believe in so many things.

Surely you can understand my skepticism.
I want to believe… but I simply cannot. Not in fantasy, fiction or delusion.

Thirteen ravens once stood outside my door. They were not there as signs from the gods. They did not bring me secret messages from beyond the grave. They were not there to remind me of the ways of the world, or to foretell the death of a loved one. They were simply scavenging the remains of a jackrabbit who found misfortune not far from my home. There actually isn’t much mystery in the world. ‘There isn’t much you can’t come to expect.’

If you just open your eyes and see.

I am a cognizant dreamer, wanting to vivify the world with prescient visions and sagacious words. These thoughts and ideas that transcend time and space are merely my intimation of what could possibly come to be. I see clearly a future unfolding of unprecedented worth.

As technology advances bringing us all closer together, I see a new ‘oneness’ between all people. This interconnected fusion is taking our relationships with each other to levels never imagined. The sharing of knowledge, thoughts and deeds will take us to the greatest of heights.

If… we can change.

And change doesn’t mean some silly pointless wishful mystery or religion.
Change means knowledge, education, awareness and truth.
With this, we may possibly have a chance.

“We live in one of the most influential times in all history – I ask you to join the beginning of the revolution – and be a part of just one of the millions of changes we will all make together.”

Grow | Learn | Conserve | Preserve | Question | Denounce | Educate | Change | Free your mind : Evolve

written, March, 2009

five six twenty ten is your fourth and i love and miss you
sixteen twenty point eight two is too far for you to be from me

be still. be kind. be patient.

soon, i will see you again.

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I often dream of a more suitable place : an exceptionable world.

This apocryphal world would be inhabited by kind and pure individuals who sought to improve their quality of life and the lives of others. They would not be filled to the brim with hate, deceit, vindictive abhorrence or any noxious, toxic or pernicious convictions. They would speak kindly of those who were not in accord with them and they would share their ideals and wishes in peace and harmony. There would be balance and purity of thought. There would not be multitudes of fabrications forced down the minds of their followers. There would be no followers. No lynch mobs. No misguided coterie. No defamation, belittlement, denigration, traducement or aspersions.

Sadly, this world is not real. In the real world I stand face to face with the begrudged.

I have been alive for 13,667 days.

I hate no one. I hold no grudge or animosity toward a single human being on this planet. I do not agree with everyone. I do not feel comfortable with the actions of some. I worry, I fear, I love, I live, I laugh, I make mistakes and I dream. I always dream… of an exceptional world.

I am a father who loves his children very very dearly.
I am a father who misses his children very very much.

I am surrounded by hatred, greed, lies, war and trickery.

I think about how we, as human beings are so terribly lost in our own meaningless ways that we have completely forgotten how to live. How to truly live. I think about how every day a child, an elder, a wife, a husband or a friend feels pain, sadness or even dies due to some conflict another human has brought on. I think about how we are so obsessed with ourselves, our own egos – that our pride justifies our hostility towards others. I think about how we can exonerate one act of hatred over another; one act of vengeance as payment for another; one act of violence to justify our antipathy.

We need to stop teaching our children hate, malevolence, religious intolerance and vengeance.

We need to stop acting like uncivilized beings; stop justifying our mistakes and begin accepting responsibility for our actions; stop blaming others; stop being so damn greedy; stop thinking that one person is better than another; stop being ruled by fear:: stop spreading hate.

We need to stop and think of how our actions will affect others.
How our actions will affect our children. How your actions will affect my children.

I have been alive for 13,667 days.
I often dream of a more suitable place : an exceptionable world.
I often dream of my children.

“You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting. Come back when you are worthy.”

I must remember that this moment, this pain, this change is just a very tiny speck in time…

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

~ Carl Sagan