Link to: Diary of a Lunatic, pt. 1
It's not all pointless. Those words, scattered across the white page of this draft, the echoes of the human voice, the sum of all things we've come through, the collective of our knowledge, our wisdom, passed down the generations of humanity's struggle to carve a little place for ourselves in the vast valleys of our little planet, humanity's effort to leave a trail, a cave painting in the mind-boggling vastness of the great dark ocean of the cosmos. The great shades of grey, mankind's progress and evolution throughout the unending progression of time.
It's not all pointless. For the price of progress is paid in blood because only in the face of great adversity, pain, suffering, we can truly evaluate our understanding and knowledge built throughout the centuries, for the prism through which we view the world is not necessarily always the correct one but one must reflect to reach that conclusion. And without that self-reflection, one must be told that the coin often has another side that doesn't always fit the narrative we know so well.
It's not all pointless. If it was, the cost of human life would have been paid in vain. The cost of raising your fist and turning your back to the flag, the cost of setting yourself on fire and burning alive, the cost of facing the advancing tanks and refusing to back off, the cost of picking flowers over picking arms, the cost of speaking quietly over shouting down, the cost of standing up for human and environmental rights. It is not paid in vain. It shall not be paid in vain. For every voice, every act, every life lost, has a message to send, a message to be heard, a message to be felt, a message worth fighting for, because the voice we have is the voice one should use to speak for those left without the right to use their voice, because choosing silence over speaking up is a betrayal to those silenced.
It's not all pointless. The Doomsday Clock will keep ticking away and it is only up to humanity to slow down its pace. As grim and demoralizing as the world could be at times, as overwhelming as all events could feel, as hopeless as some things may seem, there's always a choice one could take. The choice to look beyond oneself, the choice to educate oneself and educate others, the choice to speak up against the injustice, the choice to question and doubt established norms, the choice to choose, the choice to sacrifice, the choice to meet hate with love, the choice to breathe hope into the indifference, the choice to be a little better every day, for one's sake and everyone's sake. For sometimes, and quite often in fact, one could give without expecting to get anything back.
It's not all pointless. As hard as it is to believe at times, it's not all pointless. As big of an enemy ignorance is, there's truly no bigger enemy than apathy. For apathy eats you away, bit by bit, as one slowly becomes a shadow of oneself, a shell of a former life, a fossil left oneself to look back upon and examine. And apathy is easy to set in, for all we read, all we hear, all we see, is often flashy and sensationalist, often confusing, hidden under the veil of widely spread misinformation, contradiction, often aiming to point the finger at something else, someone else, to take the blame for the shortcomings, the disappointments, the discord, the hate. Can't blame one for choosing to be ignorant, uninformed, apathetic towards it all, we're all humans and we simply cannot and do not have the capacity to deal with every single problem in the world and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. No one must be shamed for not actively pursuing and fighting for someone's else goal and belief; sometimes, one simply has too much on one's own plate. Let people come around in their own time and guide then guide them, for we all need more allies in a world where it's very easy to make enemies.
It's not all pointless. Because humans care. Because humans posses immense amounts of empathy and compassion. Because taking a passive stand and feeling sorry for oneself doesn't help oneself, leave alone someone else. Because the very things we find disappointing are the very things we can fight to change, to improve, to build upon. Because we, all of us, every, single, human being is a biological and evolutionary miracle, and every single one of us deserves a little compassion, a little love, a little understanding, as hard as those things could be at times, for we're all a product of our environment and often it may seem impossible to see the other side of the coin.
It's not all pointless. And it will never be pointless, as long as people are being discriminated based on their gender, their skin colour, their sexual orientation or, often, their beliefs. For every human being deserves and is owed the right to exist safely, without prejudice, and has the obligation to use one's voice to speak up for those cannot do it for themselves. And we all have the obligation to our little world. To make it a little brighter. A little bit warmer. A little bit better.
“The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of man's most unique capability. "I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be.”
-- Children of Dune, Frank Herbert
