Message in a Bottle

What is a message in a bottle... but a hope adrift... unwaningly seeking a receptive soul?

If you were to chance upon a message in a bottle... would you descry the hope within? Or would the words within betoken nothing more than vocables plucked from a vulgar dictionary? For there's more to truth, than meets the eye... and there's more to messages in bottles, than epistles from prophets...

Emerging from the Fog

The truest truth is also the simplest one: everyone lies.

Yet herein resides a truer truth: everyone lies to everyone's body, everyone's mind, everyone's heart, everyone's soul... and... everyone's self.

For while we're accustomed to fathoming lies from the mouths of babes and tyrants, we're hardly inclined to scour within to unveil the artifacts that scaffold our myths, our fantasies, our legends... of us. Indeed, how many of our personal histories are fictions of personal vanity, conceit, and aggrandizement? Lest we pierce within and decree ourselves small, pitiable, and unworthy, we clutch our fabricated narratives like talismans that vanish, mists of Avalon yore against unflinching modernity.

The truth?

No one of us is a king or a tyrant. No one of us is a pauper or a slave. For all of us are kings and tyrants. And all of us are paupers and slaves.

Isn't this what it means to be human? To be dark and light, war and peace, animus and anima? To be Janus? Perpetually in opposition... to, with, of... ourselves?

When will we emancipate the swords that we embrace with such pertinacious virulence and prejudice against our own throats? When will we emerge from the fog... into the light of day... to be real, to be human... to be where we're meant to go and who we're meant to become?

Gifts

In the end, when we shed the fog of our chrysalides, we shed our selves as kings and tyrants, paupers and slaves, for a destiny far greater than vacuity and vainglory, pride and pretension:

To be more... to give more... to heal more.

When the world is all said and done, will kings, tyrants, paupers, slaves matter? Will vacuity, vainglory, pride, pretension matter?

Or will what matters... be what always matters...? Authenticity, compassion, generosity. Forgiveness, kindness, sincerity. Hope, charity, faith. Noble virtues, that a power greater than us, instilled in humankind, to succor us through pain, nurture us through agony, inspire us through despair.

Needless to say, despite everything, from brumes of self-pity to brumes of hauteur:

I give myself. I give my everything. And by small measures... one sincere word at a time... one act of kindness and generosity at a time... one leap of faith at a time... we will restore that which is irredeemable... we will love that which is execrable... we will forgive that which is inexpiable...

With a hug for the world and the world for a hug.

Thus, the cure for all that ails all of us, is as simple as our selves.

Verily:

What gives one Janus the right to sup at the table of peace, devour fruit from the tree of peace, ravage ambrosia from the gardens of peace... but not all others who are Janus, too? For are we not all Janus?

Fin

Tomorrow is for the future.

Today is for us.

It is not too late for today to be our day.

To be more.

More

It is not too late to plant seeds of hope.

It is not too late to plant seeds of peace.

For me. For you. For all of us.

It is not too late to be.

Fools Plant Flowers with Courage

Prelude

Who is the fool?

The one who trembles before a trap awaiting to be sprung?

Thus we confer among our selves:

Surely it's not unwise to wear the pragmatist's guise? To be cautiously cognizant of that which are doubtless treacheries in disguise? Isn't this the very axiom that underpins the impregnable stratagems of the supreme logician: caution spares the fool and the wise, certain humiliation and demise?

However the pragmatist is no fool at all; for the position of the pragmatist is that of a man and his measure. Indeed our frailties and our limitations are neither right nor wrong; that they invariably overwhelm bravery in the stifling darkness of the indiscernible, is but the reality of the measure of man.

And though wise and timorous, noble and ignoble... man's measure has never deservedly earned (nor never will)... the contempt, ridicule, judgment... of sage knownothings.

For how many of us... awaiting the inexorable in the arena of life and death... verily succumb to the limits of our measure? For are not those of us who wilt in the abject misery of the unknown... merely human?

Fear and Courage

To face that which we fear is to face fear.

To face that which we fear with courage is to face fear with the temerity of gods.

Yet, lest we feel disheartened and discouraged that we are but pawns in an incomprehensible war between titans, bear in mind this: courage is small; courage is big; courage is grand; courage is invisible.

Case in point:

Small courage: what else but small courage could stir the tulip from slumber, under a blanket of snow, too early in Spring? Big courage: what else but big courage could embolden the chick from an incomparable nest, to recklessly tumble towards predators endlessly on the prowl? Grand courage: what else but grand courage could inflame the king to commit lofty edicts of peace, amidst a broiling throng of bloodthirsty hordes?

Invisible courage: what else but invisible courage... rouses all of us... to walk in our lives and see... speak... feel... to shed the senseless numbness of the automaton's fate... for life?

Are we not all courageous?

Do we not all face small fears, big fears, grand fears, invisible fears... with the temerity of gods?

And do we not all revel in our vivacity, our virility, our passion for life... irrespective of the inexorable, the indiscernible, the harrowing unknown?

For isn't courage... hope?

And isn't hope... eternal? A four letter word that encapsulates that which pierces the bleakest of human experiences... in the darkest hour... in the darkest night... in the darkest of dark places... in the mind... in the body... in the heart... in the spirit?

Fin

With courage:

We will stem the tides of war; we will silence the horns of destruction; we will illuminate the conceits of deception. We will forgive (even that which we believe is inexpiable). We will impoverish our burgeoning lust to destroy our selves and each other amidst colossal clashes, and temper our extravagant fervor to exact terrible retribution and vengeance without mercy or compassion.

For are we not all deserving of mercy and compassion? 

For do we not all have dark realms... within our minds, our bodies, our hearts, our spirits... that have welcomed misdeeds and idolatries? And are we not all deserving of mercy and compassion... for that which we've undoubtedly committed... with our minds, our bodies, our hearts, our spirits?

Notwithstanding... that in the end, there is no freedom from war without freedom... and how free are any of us... if we cannot forgive ourselves... for that which we do... we've done... we'll yet do... who we are... who we've been... who we'll yet be... today... yesterday... tomorrow?

More

Does planting wildflowers in arenas desertified by war... make me a fool? For every today is a new day... and if all of us... make every today beautiful... wouldn't that be a marvel to behold? For what are we guaranteed in life... but today?

Cowardice in Search of Chivalry

Who has courage?

You?

Me?

Does it take immeasurable courage to overpower the weak... to shackle them to prisons for eternal immurement?

Does it take extraordinary courage to expropriate the helpless... of their minds, their agencies, their freedoms?

Does it take prodigious courage to subject the powerless... to abject terror and unfathomable tyranny?

So much courage... indeed... that such acts of nobility warrant untold riches, astonishing power and influence, and of course, incomparable acclaim. To whom better to award medals of bravery, tokens of honor, and remuneration in the millions of dollars... than such paragons of gallantry and virtue.

Verily... this is courage. Is it not? For isn't this, the courage of war?

Generals and commanders, Kings and aristocracy... play with people and their lives, like so many worthless cardboard pawns on expendable cardboard chessboards... for amusement, for avarice, for conceit. And lest we forget... that life is not a game... wars kill people.

So:

What about pawns...

Who gracefully submit... to eternal imprisonment?

Who lovingly relinquish... their minds, their agencies, their freedoms?

Who joyfully endure the most abhorrent, contemptible, and brutal subjection... of their bodies, their hearts, their souls?

All for the vanity, the prestige, the aggrandizement... of Generals and commanders, Kings and aristocracy.

Indeed:

Of pawns and Generals, of toys and Kings... who are the heroes in search of magnanimity, dignity, and grace... and who are the cowards in search of hollow illusory chivalry?

For:

The real hero stands....

The real hero speaks....

The real hero frees....

all of us...

...from a game that indiscriminately toxifies the godfull and the godless... miring all of us in an interminable cycle of agony and despair... that spares no one treachery.

In the end:

Who has courage?

Me?

You?

Or are we all... bad and good, dark and light, big and small... fated to this unremitting Tartarus on Earth for time immemorial?