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A master swordsman will keep his blade sharp and clean of blood. A master writer will keep his muses close at-hand so won't lose his inspiration. But at times such things cannot be done. A man will find himself completely trapped in the smoldering ashes of the day and no matter what he does, he cannot reach out and escape from his destiny. Where will you find yourself in due time?
Is the course of action you've taken the one you want to take or is the one you took out of convenience? It's easy to be analytical of things when you're experienced, but sometimes it's just as easy when you're brash, bold, and young. Some days a person will wake up and be sure of his destiny, but other days that same person will wake up and, in his melancholic ways as man is wont to be, question everything he's done up and to that point. Was going to sleep in that bed a good idea? What if he had never taken a mortgage out on the house? What if he decided to sleep with that one girl instead of his wife? What if, what if.
The river of What If flows ceaselessly. It has no direction and has no real start and no real end. It will flow now, will continue to flow into the future as it has in the past. It's carefree and, yet, it's uncaring at the same time. My what ifs always drop in torrents. I wish I could control them, but that'd be folly. Man only has so much control over his fate, but things like this he cannot control. He can only think about it, only dream about it.
Time also flows as the other river does. Love also flows as these rivers. Love is such a fickle river, though. Some days it goes with its natural current and other days it goes against the current. Love could be more than a river, though. As the hyperbole extends and extends, going a distance even beyond the stars, love knows it has other forms. A star, a calm snowfall, a human form, even a grand and destructive hurricane. Love is blessed and love is cursed. Love can also overlap with the river of What If. When it does so, feelings are squandered over petty things and then they are found.
If only I loved that person a little more, things would have worked out. What if my parents had loved me like they claimed, would I be more well-adjusted and well-rounded? We can't know the answer to such questions. Knowing that simply vexes the human mind. But then, the human mind is oft so easy to vex.
On the subject of the human mind, what is knowledge to us? At one time, knowledge was hard to obtain. Only the aristocracy and the royal families could obtain it. It was better to keep the general populace in dark and crippling ignorance. To that I say “You bastards,” but to no one in general. As time flowed forward, knowledge began to slowly come to the common man, then the common woman and child, then to people of all races and creeds. Knowledge is still held to certain people of certain status and gender in other countries, but it is easy to see that many can obtain it if they seek it.
A problem I see happening in this day and age, a day and age of modernity and growth, people are slowly becoming ignorant again. They don't see a value in knowledge and I see many in high places perpetuating and encouraging this horrible road my peers, elders, and our youth seem to be going. You, my dear reader, may think “But we have public education!” and to that I do concede that point, but we are growing ignorant in the ways of politics and even science and mathematics, primarily politics. As long as we continue distort the truth and encourage the mindset of “This is boring, I shouldn't care. Let someone else care.” when it comes to politics.
I look off into the corner and see what should be, what could be. Our future feels bleak some days, but bright and rosy others. Will we come to the realization that many of our leaders are lying to us? Will we realize we give media figureheads far too much power in our lives? What will the Glenn Becks and the Keith Olbermans of the future do to make us think the way they do? What sort of lies and distortions will be spoonfed to us to make us unaware of the real world? Perhaps my worries are strictly American. It is hard to say in this world as I admit to being a bit inexperienced to the workings of other countries. There I plead to my own ignorance and in that I hope one day to rectify this by becoming less ignorant.
Religion. Religion is a powerful, powerful tool in everyday life. It has brought people together in tragedy and it has brought people pain and misery and even death. Even today we still see much of this. From the radical Wahabis in the Middle East decrying the West and proclaiming their jihads and issuing their fatwas to the radical Christian right in America who bomb abortion clinics and murder the doctors who are brazen enough to work at those clinics. Are all Muslims and Christians like this? No, that would be the folly of ignorance to be so presumptuous and narrow-minded. Many atheists I know despise religion in all its forms and wish it to be gone. I look at them and at the religious folks and find a middle ground. I do not care for it myself, but I see where it is useful.
Religion does help bring hope to those in need of hope, regardless of how falsified that hope may or may not be. It also divides families. There are so many different branches and sects of the many major religions that you could easily get lost and confused. Islam has Sufism, Ismaili, Shi'a, and Sunni. Christianity boasts Protestantism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, Baptist, Episcopalian, Methodist, so on and so forth. Judaism sees Hasid, Kabbalah, Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative. Going on and on and on with the various versions of what is considered “liberal,” “conservative,” and “mystic.” Many of these labels are seen in modern politics as well, but I digress.
What will religion do for us now and in the future? Can't truly say as I'm not clairvoyant and thus cannot see into the future. Perhaps a religion will rise and unite us as many conservative Christians are afraid of, seeing that as a sign of the New World order that shall be run by Satan, or perhaps it will lead to our ultimate destruction. Perhaps, given the way things go these days, the latter is much more likely. There is one thing we can be certain of and that is that the world -will- ultimately reach an end whether through war and famine or the sun going supernova and destroying us as well as the other inner planets.
In the end we still focus on the present as well as ourselves. Human beings, as a species, are very selfish and self-centered. We tend to think about what will benefit ourselves and our ideologies most. That is why you see so much vitriol when it comes to matters between the political left and right as well as the religious left and right. Whether the issue is gay marriage and adoption or abortion or even health care, each side will use whatever means it has to convince people to flock to their thought processes and to obliterate the opposition. I mourn such things, but am aware it will not go away, no matter how hard I wish for it to. It would take the conscientious effort of the human race to accomplish such a thing. That, though, gives me a little bit of hope.
All I can do, in the long run, is hope. Hope that we improve our way of life and our way of thinking. Maybe one day all men will be considered equal, maybe one day everyone will be able to learn and be educated and know that they can make a choice, and maybe, just maybe, one day we will be more honest with the people above and below us and we'll keep ignorance at bay.
Those are my thoughts and I wish to thank you, dear reader, for taking the time out of your day to read them. Gute Nacht.
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