One question is not solvable. It is not polite. It leads to necessary deconstruction of one's idea of fairness as it applies directly to oneself. That is, where we were born and into what situation. In the confrontation of privileged one to degraded one, the tourist and the vagabond we never leave with a satisfactory sense of our humanity. Shall we blame God for the unequal chances we are born into? Chances are part of the universe, but we humans are enjoined with the responsibity for the range of chances available to our own. How can we blame God, when humans - you and I - are complicit in creating the vastness and degree of inequity in the chances of who is born today, the choices available. The more fortunate are not so just by their bad luck as the charitable believe, but by the moral failures of humanity's previous generations. Their current choices are shaped by ours. Like an alcoholic, we may be poised to break the generational cycle. What do you think? What's your stand in this one life?
Yet for a young child, the chance at birth given, is conditions they find themselves born to, and completely at the mercy of. A young girl in a country our history made poor, is someone we most frequently fail to protect. Who is most immediately responsible? Being responsible is not the same as having the means to protect and nourish. A mother's burden is as immense as the joy of a child, it is never easy, none can do it alone. Who surrounds a mother? What is that community up against? Is it similar to when the greedy raze a forest and ruin the soil. What lives fights for life, it is not the lush vegetation of a nourished ground. The elements have been degraded. You can water, and a plant will survive, but it is not vibrant life as it was meant to be. Water land that has been razed, as charity while enjoying the high end furniture, the cheap electronics, the stuff of pleasure. No, this land must be renewed. The foundation of societies impoverished by our arrangements must be restored. The people shall build it themselves, so long as ones like you and me respect it, hold and pass the tools, share the knowledge and stand out of the way.
What is given to chance in life is the reason life is unfair. What is given to people in life, is the chance to be fair to each other. In order to be fair to one another, we cannot assume that life is fair, we must be able to understand the way in which life is unfair. Then, our humanity rests in acting fairly on that understanding. It does not rest in the tourist becoming a vagabond on purpose, or the tourist out to change vagabonds into tourist.
At the end of the day, when we are fair, those we encounter have dignity. It may be a dignity that have not known, but they will recongize it. It is part of human nature. Freedom is thought of as many things, all of which are transient and can be taken away. Without dignity, the mind is lost and the heart broken. What freedoms have meaning where dignity is lost.
I am speaking of myself too. And dignity is something that can become vacant within me, head down, without worth, in embarassment or humiliation. None of us are the steel and poise, competence and shine we show the world. Some of us are not able to keep that up day by day, we shake, we hide, we get through the day. All of us search for a way to be free.
In this book, we will move on from the history of the universe. We will introduce you, my audience, as a character. I can guess that you've had a hard time to decide something, you've been irritated, perhaps you are now at this writing. You shower daily, and perhaps you read on the toilet. Your life is fairly ordinary, even though events in it, at times, maybe now, shake and challenge you. You're a reader, there's no way I have you down. You're mysterious to me, yet I'm talking directly to you. As a character in my book, I've kidnapped you. Perhaps I'll reveal you in ways that are profound, even difficult. If you are to 'read the book of your own life', as Rumi said, I shall try to write it. But to read it in a way that you regain consciousness, your own consiousness, you cannot follow yourself as a character for which you have hopes for. You're in the book, it's not about you. That in itself can be a new cliche for the masses. 'You're in the book of your life, but it's not about you.' It's about life.
A world so rich, deep, powerful, sometimes painfully beautiful because delights and enlightenments, the moment one falls in love or discovers and experiences the depth of beauty are fleeting. We resist that direct connection because it may be gone now, there is no 'evidence' for it but the memory, and the disenchantment of drudgery is where the vast majority of time is spent so that we can survive through money and other entitlements. Duty calls.
The great global depression is all about our sense that this Majesty is either an illusion, a disappointment, a romanticism. Or, more heartwrenching is that it is real, but it is being lost, it is leaving us, we are too drowned in its sorrows to say that the Beautiful is the Real, the sorrows are its confusion and the tragedy is how very long we go on with brutalities and pain, and ignorance, and how many times we turn away from some spark of that Majesty. Being lost to artificial life. So many buildings, none of them beautiful, all of them functional and modern, and necessary, and our thanks to the developers who drive our bountious economy. Blocking the full moon.
So you the reader, are my first character in this book, and I will call my friend. Under tonight's full moon, you walk home. Sweet raindrops gently fall from the bright yellow maple, a leaf brushes the lapel of your fall coat. The temperature neither makes you feel too hot or cold. The reflection of the town hall buildings has a perfect clarity like a mirror in the river below. The wind is calm and the rain has stopped save a light the breeze carrying droplets from wet branches.
There is no war. There is no flood. There is no bread shortage or lack of fuel. You and I are blessed, I am grateful for your safety and comfort. World's survived another day. World's seen many things it regrets. It does not regret this just being. It's forces will drive us to labour again tomorrow, and perhaps our work will surprise the world in lessening its burden and regrets. You know what it takes. A random act of kindness perhaps, an act of courage, a friendly and open gesture, lifting your head from your desk and suggesting a lunch together with colleagues, a mere breaking up the illusion that people's worth is what they can put on paper, on time. The world will not regret you and I, our friendship. It is the because we can recall the majesty, and realize it never left us. The war, the strikes, the solidarity, the faith in God, the marches so black and white could be authentic friends at work, at school, full recognition of status as equals, not living in a society based on a false permise. Many accepted death, the did not chose it, but they knew surviving such battles would not be possible for all who fought them. They fought. Each one of us are meek and our existence, our life, is not as we sometimes feel in these times of peace and modern medicine, gauranteed by anyone, nor are we a cog that if destroyed the entire machine would fall apart. These things do not distinguish us, we are not entitled just because we live. The right to life is not about our bodily functions, it is the right to be alive when we live. We cannot feel anything but grateful for this that we have now, for each other my friend. The moon, the maple, your people.
We are going to write a story, maybe other characters will join soon. There will be conflict and desperation in the road ahead. I do not think there is anything to fear. It's only a book. You are not afraid, because this is a book about life, which you are a character, but it is not about you as some kind of worried and self-examining neurotic. It's time to stop worrying about what people like to worry about, what will happen to their reputation, money, ability to provide, their responsibilities towards others.
I feel the same way. Is this the way we become warriors? We resign. We live with our agency, intention, free will and risks to ourselves. What if we encounter disaster? We sink with our characters, when we read, we drown with them and hold our breath, the book is not in danger. The book's only danger is if it is only writing, separate from its authenticity. What is important if our lives our lost, if we die. The book, and you and I will not be the same, if we are to be at all.
What can reconcile human tragedy. We don't know. This is an effort to do so, and that is the book. It may be long. We can do it.
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