22:04 - 2005-05-21
The Holy Soapbox
Why is it too much to ask that people try to understand one another? Why do human beings allow money to consume their lives? Why do we pay more attention to rules made to solve problems than to resolving the problems themselves? Why do people continue to assume things that they know aren't true based only on appearences.
Because they are human? Yes...that's an excuse we've lived on for years. It only works to be human when you have tried and failed. Just because you are human doesn't mean you can't try. It because you are weak and stubborn that you don't try.
I am, perhaps, an idealist. But it's people who are bitter and ignorant who make idealists seem ridiculous. It is hypocrites who praise idealistic heros who made a difference that sit in tall desks and scoff at notions of improvement in society. Because I am small I am an idealist when one like me is considered a hero because his name is known more widely. This is where it starts. One small person can do nothing when the world would rather look tough and be bitter, when the world would rather say, "That's just how it is."
Money is not everything, nor is it much at all.
Humanity is not against you just because you disagree.
Frustration is no excuse to give up.
Love is not pathetic and delusional.
Human is an excuse to be strong as well. To grow instead of run. To care about other people. These instincts are inherent in you as well. You make the choice.
You are walking without your eyes when you think of the world as only physical. This sphere rotates, these bodies function, but we are more than that. You don't know what kind of power is in the soul of a human being: power to be hateful, to be greedy, to be selfish--or power to be strong and to demand that this place change for the better. Do what is easy. Do what is wrong. But think about how happy you are. Think about the nonexistance of what you accomplish. Do what you please, get what you want, but stop and realize how empty you are until you say something that sounds cultured or makes you look big. How much do you have to do to hold that emptiness at bay? Do you really call that living?
Perhaps you are doing well enough to keep yourself out of trouble. Do your job and live your life and be happy. That is easy too you know. We were put here to do something with these lives. Not just to live them and be happy, if that. You forget who listens to you, and you forget how much you could change if you only tried. You don't understand the quality that you could bring to the lives around you, and to your own.
I am not talking about radical ideas and impossible utopian goals. People can be happy without money, and they can be understanding of each other. It doesn't take training, or meditation, all it takes is effort and will. There are too many people on this planet for these things to be impossible. I have seen it done even without any conscious effort at all.
I will not compromise myself, nor my ideals, and it is not because I am selfish, but because I love you. I love this world. If God can love me, I can care enough to try, and so can you. I will hold you to these expectations, even if you do not understand that you will be happier this way. Is this a strange thing to do? Is it wrong? If it is, then you are foolish, and you will only hurt, but just like the God that made you, I will not give up on you.
