When a human speaks what comes out?
Is it failures, hopes, dreams?
Do the words represent freedom?
Or just a logical way to communicate?
Humanity has not always been united in this regard.
Thousands of cultures have existed.
These ancient people made art, tools, and crafted language.
Progress always had it’s price.
Skin color, cultural values, and language all warped.
People could their differences to others.
It is these differences that has caused conflict.
Water, without it we have no life.
It covers are planet in an eternal blue dye.
Whether ice or steam it will always be here.
Water, without it, we would have great fear.
Fear that our planet will be devoid of all life.
Water soothes and protects healing all wounds.
It possesses a power more pure than the moon.
Be warned waters power is fearsome and great.
It can decide our people’s fate.
Water rising and twisting, overwhelming the coast.
We must realize that water is our host.
A host that is spreading over our land.
Depopulating the areas of all man.
We must all share in one true fear.
Fear that our planet will be devoid of all life.
They can’t do it peacefully.
When we were young in times of stone.
Laws of war were not yet known.
Iron and steel were the laws of the land.
Victory was decided by the strength of your hand.
Hulking warriors grew obsolete.
Gunpowder guaranteed their defeat.
With armies possessing cannon and rifle.
Only luck made certain a warriors survival.
The advents of weapons did not end there.
Soldiers soon found another reason to beware.
Automatic guns would shred a mans flesh.
Iron armor was not battle dress.
On top of that there were chemical attacks.
Leaving men to die and grovel like filthy rats
The worse of the weapons had not come.
A weapon that would cause life to be undone.
The advent of a weapon that contains so much power.
Would be humanity’s dying hour.
Hateful, spiteful, repeating
Underneath a persons very skin
Men and women struggle
And it is then that war begins
New information and cultures appear
Illegal feelings and thoughts
The end of life as we know it
Your battle is one quickly lost
Open ones mind and ones thoughts
Verify every fact
Each life can be worth living
Reaching forward, but never back
Creating a false world
Readily defended lies
Up, and up, and up you build
Eventually puncturing the skies
Leave your ignorance, and hate, and carelessness
Take nothing with you at all
You are only as big as your every fear
And even you will eventually fall.
I am obsessed with the song Samson by Regina Spektor. Ask my roommate, she knows.
What I love the most about the song is not the beautiful, velvety vocals but the lyrics (to be specific, the meaning behind them).
It tells the story of Samson through the eyes of Delilah, his deceitful wife. Samson was blessed by God with incredible strength (he could even kill a lion with his bare hands). With that strength, Samson fought off wicked people and God was pleased. Samson was good. He was obedient and he loved God. So, God promised Samson his strength as long as he never cut a hair off his head.
Delilah had given into sin by accepting the bribes of the Philistines. Blinded by money, she sought to find Samson’s ultimate weakness and to bring about his downfall. Every night, he incessantly asked her husband where his shortcomings lied. But every night, Samson gave her the wrong answer. After being given the answer, Delilah called the Philistines to her house to attack her husband, just to have Samson fight them off.
Finally, one night, Delilah got to him. She had told him that if he truly loved him, he would confide in her.
and he did.
Samson lost his hair that night and Delilah sold her husband to the Philistines. Tied to a pillar in their palace, Samson watched as the Philistines celebrated with a feast. Samson, deceived, guilt welling up in his chest cavity, prayed to God for one last chance. He asked for forgiveness and he asked for his strength. And for the last time, Samson got up and used his power to break the pillar that he was tied against, killing all inside the building, including himself.
This story is particularly moving to me because it shows how easily mankind can fall into sin’s trap. Everyday, the story of Samson lives on in every one of us. We are the deceived but more often, we are the deceivers.
Once you branch off from the straight path, like a tree that has grown crooked, you can never go back and straighten in out again. The past will always remain in the past. But life’s goal is to turn back once a mistake has been made. You must live and learn. Let the present be something you will never regret.
It’s funny. I didn’t think that I’d find such depth and meaning in my summer reading.
I was assigned four books over this past summer, one of them being Toole’s The Confederacy of Dunces. In reading this book, it opened up my eyes of the vicious circle that has been plaguing our society since the birth of mankind and undoubtedly will do so for eternity (or, in my mind, the Rapture).
People want to be viewed by others a certain way. They portray themselves accordingly depending on who their audience is. As shown through the main character of Ignatius J. Reilly, one might strive for acknowledgment but receive nothing but judgement in return.
Prejudice is a instantaneous reaction, an almost inbred behavior. It may take your brain a few seconds to scan a stranger before you feel like you already have a grasp of the kind of a person he or she is.
People, whether conscious of the fact or no, put on a guise in order to recreate themselves. Most people describe going off to college as a time to “start with a clean slate.” This is essentially people putting on a new persona. You are given the opportunity to leave your past behind. So you used to be the girl who was too shy to approach anybody? Well now that same girl is the first to introduce herself at her new college. You are allowed to break the binding chains of the stereotypes that you had been associated with during these chance times. And in this vicious cycle, there are many opportunities to change.
We are afraid to be judged (on different levels of course) yet, we judge almost all we see. The circle feeds on insecurities, on fears, on secrets and it generates even more. Just as Van Gogh‘s potentials were never realized (at least not until after his death) and Ignatius’ motives were misinterpreted, humanity will always reject what is not the norm. And, in one way or the other, people will always strive to live up to the standards of their peers.
It’s very hard not to get sad when thinking about the world and how horrible a place it can be. It’s very hard to remember the other lives that are being abused today, when my life is so easy. It’s very hard when you know you can’t fix these problems that plague society. It makes my blood boil.
Right now, people are living in fear. In fear of their government, in fear of their people, in fear of disease, in fear of something.
Burma, Southeast Asia, 2007.
Monks are holy and sacred figures, the symbols of peace and humanity in Burma. They are religious leaders who focus on the tranquility of life and don’t involve themselves in politics, that is, until the summer of 2007.
The political standing of Burma is corrupt, savage, and inhumane to put it lightly. The government, an organization of people meant to protect the welfare of their fellow Burmese, has caged their people and censored the news. Their goal was to disband people, to prevent civilians from joining together because two people are stronger than one, and 100 people are stronger than 10. Nobody speaks in fear of being taken by undercover government officials. Their voices aren’t heard. The people are mute. The people are afraid. The people are waiting for an answer, for a solution.
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