Stand
I’m tired tonight. Tired because of a lack of anything looking like decent sleep over the last few nights. Tired of the rat race that we think is the way to happiness; when it’s just another way to lose your soul in the corporate excess of a million things you don’t need, to fill the holes in your soul that you don’t understand.
Tired of the people who are so certain that they are right, that they demonize and denigrate anyone and anything who disagrees with their point of view.
But most of all, I’m tired of the unkindness I see in people who proclaim to know better.
And I get it, I really do. In a world so complex, so overflowing with potentials and possibilities that it’s hard to feel certain about anything, it’s only natural to want to find something to hang your faith upon, be it your ideology or your theology.
And if that works for you then great, knock yourself out, but stop hitting and hurting everyone around you with your moralistic interpretations of what’s right and wrong.
Using your vaunted ‘righteousness’ as a bludgeon to hide your cruelties and insecurities.
We have enough people who ‘know’ what they believe and elevate themselves above the crowd, and far too few people who are willing to stand up and admit that they don’t know, but that they’ve found a way to make peace with the infinite chaos and complexity of the universe.
That they are able to sacrifice their need to ‘know and be right’, and are instead willing to ‘love and possibly be wrong.’
Because we are fast approaching a point where we’re going to fracture what’s left of our families, our societies, our communities and our countries in our nihilistic desire to find an external solution to our internal longing to be sure, and to be loved.
And unless we find a way back from the precipice, it’s going to go wrong.
So tonight, as I sit here having had maybe an average of 4 hours of sleep per night over the past few nights, and not much more than that for many nights past that, I’m just about done with all of it.
But my solution, instead of getting angry, or baring harsh words as weapons in a war of ideas, is to lay down arms, and pick up the one weapon I have that I can unleash without fear of damage, or worry of pain.
I’m going to hit everyone with all the kindness I’ve got.
Because I don’t know what else is going to have any effect. Can I beat them in an argument – probably, but it’s going to increase their enmity in a world that has far too much of it already.
Can I prove them wrong – possibly, but until they feel loved enough to listen, my words will fall as seeds on the hard ground, unable to grow, and eventually worn down underfoot and trampled into oblivion.
But kindness, love, respect, compassion and a deep, honest desire to stand in this world of nightmares and shine the light of a new day into the hearts of all whom I see and know – that is something they’ll never see coming.
Which is why I think it has a chance to work.
So I’m going to double down, and go all in on my desire to make the world a better place, and ease whatever suffering I can.
I realize I might be one man, standing at the water’s edge, trying to hold back the tide of humanity against the never ending gravity of time, but stand I will.
If I can make a difference in one life, and leave ripples in the lives of every person that one life touches, my struggle will not have been in vain, but I hope to do so much more.
So this is me, rising to stand.
Watch me. Because I’m done with sitting still.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings