This is an excerpt of some of my other work in which I attempt to find the balance of life through the visualization of the way society views life and how it should be lived. This is by no means a finished work, but I have been working at it as I, myself, come to terms with and face the situations I have decided to explore.
-"Life, Philosophy, and
Rhetoric
Part One: Everyday Life
What is humanity?
What is fatherhood?
What is family?
These three questions have passed
through my thoughts several times throughout the course of my life, and have
made a nasty habit of coming to the surface more so in the past month. The days
pass, and as they do, I come no closer to finding the answers to these
questions, and my frustration grows. How does a man who was raised to be as
sharp as a well maintained blade, as unfeeling as a rock, learn to feel? How to
find a balance when the carefully constructed world he has clung to for his
entire existence comes crashing down? The closer I find myself coming to an
answer, the faster it goes spiraling away.
This is not a narrative of my life,
nor that of anyone else, but merely the observations and conjectures that
manifest themselves within the core of every human being’s psyche as they
develop and move further through their life. I may present examples from my own
life, or examples from the lives of those I have observed, and from the lives
and experiences of those that I have grown close to and apart from over the
years. This series of writing contains the essence of the lives we all lead,
the lies we tell, and the truths we accept. I will attempt to be as unbiased on
the content of this as possible, but I feel that I may end up placing one or
two of my own thoughts and beliefs within this essay.
The first question is humanity.
What is it? Humanity is taught to all people as the guiding internal compass
between right and wrong. Over the centuries of mankind’s existence, our views
of humanity have shifted and changed. To one person, humanity is the ability to
accept the facts of life for what they are, and to guide their own life by that
principle. To another, humanity is merely donating to the nearest charity, then
going to a coffee shop, and posting on a self-righteous blog about how their
own life is horrible as they sip a large mocha which the very people they
donated money to assist are exploited. There is not a clear answer to humanity,
and as one who was raised to be unfeeling and emotionless, accepting my own
humanity has been something I’ve grappled with for as long as I can remember. I
can only speculate from my own experiences, but I have observed that humanity
has a much deeper meaning, and a more subtle impact than anyone would be
willing to admit. Humanity as I have observed goes through several steps, and
several forms, ranging from simple compliance with custom and tradition because
it has been unchanging since the dawn of time, to the view of trying to break
the mold and differentiate one’s self from the masses. It stretches from
emotion; anger, fear, sadness, happiness, indifference; to the subtle things we
do within our own lives that have far reaching consequences that generate the
very crossroads we face in our own lives, and the lives of others
inadvertently. The concept of humanity leads to my next question.
What is fatherhood? What does it
mean, and what does it entail? Fatherhood is often a title for one who has both
procreated and conceived a child of their own, but it has also been given to
those who guide the lives of others, sharing their wisdom and experiences with
the next generation in hopes of aiding them in their own lives and to prevent
them from making the same mistakes. A friend once said that fatherhood was one
of our baser instincts, a drive to ensure the survival of our own bloodlines
through the ages. Another said it was a part of life, the part where we face
the most of life’s trials, and the part of life where our lives begin to turn
towards their end. That being said, I honestly do not understand why more
people who have become a father choose not to take a part in the lives of their
children, choosing to either remain anonymous, or to send a check in the mail
every month while they live life as it was before parenthood. Once more, I
remind myself that this is not to express my apathy towards mankind for its
behavior, but merely a narrative and prompt to direct my thoughts on the
subject in a non-partial manner. I, myself, am a fledgling father, and honestly
I will admit that the idea of parenthood both scares, and intrigues me. I will
begin guiding another, a continuation of my own flesh and blood, to their fate
while attempting to ensure that the legacy I leave behind is one I can be proud
of.
My final prompt for this literary
work is the concept of family, how it has deteriorated over the years, and how
many try to create an illusion of function when faced with certain dysfunction.
Long ago, family was one of the most treasured concepts, and many families had
made it a point to stick together, no matter what, going as far as creating an
ancestral home and remaining in it through the generations. In the age of the
internet, social networking, and information on demand, it has become less
common to spend time together as a family, rather than focus on the latest
global news, or to drown out the surrounding world in music. Many escape into
the virtual world of video-games, remaining ignorant to the smaller, more
subtle changes in the world around them. How does mankind continue to slide
further into this trend, when it has made several attempts to limit progress?
The answer is quite simple, actually. It has been predicted that no matter what
the challenge, mankind will progress and evolve around the problem, overcoming
it and becoming increasingly superior. But when does progress turn to
regression? How does one control the rate they progress at? These are startling
concepts, and there currently is not an answer because each individual
progresses at their own rate, some quicker, others, slower. Progress has a
direct correlation with family, because as we progress, the concept of family
becomes broader, and harder to distinguish between friends who are incredibly
close, and those who share your genetics.
I will still grapple with my own
humanity, and with my concepts of fatherhood and family, as I have grown from
the very root of dysfunction, and I pray that I may never subject my own
children to it, even with the most false of hope. As some would say, the apple
doesn’t fall far from the tree, but to conclude this, the statement is indeed
one of the harshest facts of life. Everything we are is everything we’ve
already done, our choices are our anchors, and our will is our driving force.
When our will drives us to become better than we are, we will rise to the
occasion, and when our will drives us to betray mankind, we are the ones who
drive the knife into each other’s backs. While this fact does not give one much
hope, at the same time, it illuminates the world around us, allowing us to see
the flow of our decisions and the ripples of our choices with greater clarity.
Part Two:
Relationship Rhetoric
How is
it that we can tell when we are truly suffering and “heart-broken”? Suffering
is a conceptual fact that when one has endured a certain hardship, that they
are broken and changed permanently. But why do we allow these hardships to
change who we are on a fundamental level? The changes occur because the
hardship tests our resolve, challenges our ideals, and ultimately forces us to
swallow the bitter pill of being wrong about our perceptions. The challenge in
life to end suffering is not to go without trying new things out of fear of
being hurt, but to embrace the newfound knowledge of being wrong about our
ideas, because then we can formulate new ideas and test them. The very same
principle is found in the scientific method that scientists use to determine if
their own theories and hypotheses are true, or if it is false.
The
source of hardship is not hard to find, because it is usually where we see
through hindsight that our fortune had changed."-
Things are still a bit rough with it, and these are the earlier version of these conceptual pieces, so please, I strongly advise that you do not see these as my outlook on life, but rather as an objective description as an outsider would see it.
-"Shade"
