The longer I live the more I have concluded that we could travel to the future and live on a distant planet or transport ourselves to live in the visions of the past, Strife and its cousin Discord would still serve to do nothing but cause us to stumble in the path of humanity. By this, I mean "the act of being humane or be marked by consideration."
In a world where great patriots, thinkers, and speakers have forsook their very lives to speak epitaphs of peace and compassion, we find ourselves still riddled with the disease of discontentment and debasement of one another. Strife and Discord manage to still find their way into hardening our hearts and limiting our vision. Whether we walk in a desert for forty years or live one day without our ordinary comforts, we never seem to learn the intrinsic lessons that life so eloquently tries to show us. Whether we can wrap our minds around it or ever come to embrace it, or not, we need each other. We need all the differences of who we all are. Understanding and even coming to the point of appreciating our differences is a journey not for the feeble.
We often wonder why no one hears us when we speak or cry out, why there is no justice, or why no one seems to care. Tearing ourselves from the pinhole view of our own lives, where we have no room to see anyone else, is not an easy task. Waking our souls from a long soul-slumber to finally live the life we were given, instead of existing in it wondering "when" life will happen, isn't easy, either. We disguise our discontentment in measures of hostility with one another and stand about beating our chests touting our list of injustices. However, the truth is everyone has been hurt and everyone has suffered.
From the moment we are born, our trials of life begin, and each of us has their own burdens to bear until we arrive at Death's door. Can we not look on the face of each other and admit that? Can we not gaze into the eyes of each other and see how much we all are in this existence together? Can we not embrace fellow suffering souls instead of lashing out at them? In which layer does humanity exist? How far do we dig to reach it?
***
"See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen:--all are punishéd.
"A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
Some shall be pardoned,
and some punishéd."
From Act V, Scene III of Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare
(Copyright 1999 by Nutryneaux - No reproduction without express permission from the author)