It must be something being you.
I can only share with you my experiences of being me, but it really must be something being you. Life is kind of surreal, if you really stop and think on it. Here we are, walking colonies of cells with lower and higher brain functions that allow us to fully realize that we are walking colonies of cells.
Every day of life is a miracle. I’m not talking in the religious or spiritual sense, I’m talking about the fact that we even exist at all, that we are a part of the universe, that it is what it is, and that everything is in place for us to have developed. I don’t think most people really stop and think about this day to day.
I believe they should, because if they did, perhaps we would be a little kinder to one another. We would be more willing to listen to what people have to say. Maybe we would give others the benefit of the doubt, or become more aware of our own imperfections before judging someone on theirs.
I guess I just kind of wonder why we take it all for granted like we do. Is it in our genes to look at everything around us and ignore it until it grabs our attention. Maybe we’re too big, as a species. Maybe we have too much. Perhaps we’re exploiting everything instead of appreciating it. I’d say that would be more than a maybe, quite a bit more. Something more along the lines of a certainty.
I grow more and more uncomfortable with life every day. I have no desire to die, but at the same time I find myself becoming more discomfited, more unnerved by the society in which I live.
By my own nature, I don’t like violence. I mean, I’ve watched violent movies, but it’s never the violence that gets my attention and holds it. I’m no Pollyanna, because I have a temper, and I can get upset, but it fades quickly, and at no point do I actually want to hurt people, even if I think that for a brief moment it might force someone to rethink something.
I’ve learned you can’t fix ignorance with your fists, and stopping violence with more violence just feeds into the problem.
“The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
– The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I.
I believe we’re losing that quality of mercy. We’ve long since begun to travel the road to being a hard hearted people. Even in more “civilized” and “enlightened” nations, we’re hewing closer to steelier edge.
In a world where a minority is now proclaiming that not everything is black and white, the majority is shouting them down by forcing a pattern of black and white upon them. Indoctrination is an insidious thing, one that turns an appalling ideology into a palatable sense of duty, all without breaking the stride of its messengers.
I fear for us. Not just us as a people. I’m a U.S. citizen, but I don’t hold it in any kind of regard beyond a circumstance of my birth. I live in a capitalist system that I despise, and have despised long before I started seeking out alternatives. I’m tired of seeing new barriers raised against the ideas of mercy, compassion, kindness, charity; the very essence of love itself.
Instead, I think we’re replacing love with cynicism and it’s deadlier cousin apathy. We’re deciding, collectively, that no one *actually* cares about others, and we’re taking on that same attitude of disinterest in the nature of humanity and how we can improve it.
Instead, I think we’d rather just entertain it, to keep the hounds of collective conscience at bay. It’s much easier to ignore an issue if you don’t have to care about the people who must deal with it. Better that it should be pushed aside, swept underneath the rug, hidden behind the box in the corner of the basement.
I think I’m doing fairly well today. Normally, my thoughts come in blocks and chunks, and I just lay them out as they come. Today they seem to be flowing from a single source, which is nice.
Anyway, I don’t know what to do about it. All of my life I’ve just wanted to love people, to make them happy, and to improve their lives in some fashion. Doing so would, in turn, make me happy, and give my heart a sense of fulfillment. I think I just get dismayed by how large that mission becomes with every passing day.
I should say, also, that it’s not just about some kind of *mission* because that makes it seem like it’s some kind of assignment. I do it because I want to do it, because I want to make life better for everyone, from quality to quantity.
No human being should live without love.
I’m not certain what else I can add beyond that, at least for the moment.