Sunday, January 24, 2010

A Message from LOTR

Today I was pondering the virtues of a rock. An inanimate, non living thing that seems to just sit there. Not so, says the rock. Rocks erode, crack, crumble and wash away. They can be mountainous. Or they can be the sands upon which we walk. They destroy and they protect. There is no such thing as a good rock or a bad rock; the evolution of the rock is a product of its environment. A rock does not decide. It just is. And we accept that and respect its power.

People are made of flesh, bones, hearts and souls. Our existence is both fragile and powerful. Unlike the rock, we can take some control over our change. We can decide what we want to change to and from. We can decide what we want to accept or not. We can decide what to put into our mouths. When to exercise. What to read. What to think. Who to like and who to ignore. We have the power to walk away from a bad situation, and the power to stay.

People have the power to alter another person by the things that are said and done, and we each have the power to choose how it affects us. The only thing we cannot control is time and the fact that every day we get older. But we are powerful, more powerful than the rock.

The thing about people, however, is that we seem to lack knowledge of ourselves. We all know someone with untapped potential. We all know that we ourselves feel that way. Unlike the rock, we are capable of feeling fear. Some philosophers refer to this as ego, which is the opposite of self esteem. As mere mortals, we are flawed, imperfect and fraught with the free will, such that we can create havoc or heaven for our self and others.

I like to think that most people aspire to be good people who act with the best intentions. I like to believe that we are all in this together. I hope that our intentions are true and not self - driven out of fear and ego.

Ironically, we often refer to people as "a rock." Unfortunately, we are not all rocks, all the time. Sometimes we crumble. Sometimes we fall. Sometimes we bring pain upon others. Sometimes we are ... people.

Signed, The Leader of the Revolution.

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