Those who know me best know I am at heart a dramatic, if I can nounify that adjective. Thus, in my “thoughtful states” I tend to get bombastic and didactic all at the same time. I recently saw a quote pinned up on a wall at school from Abraham Lincoln that says, “Die when I may, I want it said of me that I plucked a weed and planted a flower where ever I thought a flower would grow.” A powerful quote, no? It goes right along with my other favorite quote from Henri-Frédéric Amiel that says, “Life is short and we never have enough time for gladdening the hearts of those who travel the way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.” The cruelty of man to man always sickens my heart, especially when I myself am the perpetrator of such acts. When acts of violence and cruelty are witnessed, too many of us shrink, thinking, “I’m glad I’m not like that,” forgetting that it lies within all mankind to become so depraved! Kindness, gentleness, and love are those healing virtues so desperately needed by man, and also so difficult to cultivate! With all of this in mind, I include an entry made in personal journal while in a plane (one of the places I get most “thoughtful” I think due to the wide vistas available to view) on the second day of January, this year. Remember my flair for the dramatic; I can be a little verbose, but read through the fluff for the emotional content, for it was written from the heart. As always, my most immediate audience—i.e. the one who needs it most—is myself….
I sit on a plane with my fellow human beings, and the silent, dark earth passes on beneath us. We float over innumerable souls, evidenced by lights, grouped and huddled for fear of the lonesome dark-a mirror of the most basic of all desires, deeper than that of sustenance and pleasing environment, inherent in their creators—that of companionship.
Below me, countless scenes of the same kind play out on the human stage. As the lone lamp in the forest shines inconsequential and irrelevant when seen against the vast blackness from above, so the earth moves on its course through the cosmos. Scenes of love, scenes of villainy (whose heart is always fear), scenes of no consequence alike play and replay in their various forms, played out by their various actors, heeding the voice of one director or the other (love or fear), time and time again as they have been since man became man. And still we grasp and moan and cling! Still we fret over the torturing objects and circumstances that we ourselves have created and willfully submit ourselves to! Oh humanity! Open thy eyes! Do not grovel in the dust of ignorance! Arise! Ascend to the spiritual heights like the literal heights I now enjoy, with all the perspective it offers! So inconsequential your daily dealings, and yet you grasp after worthless money, fret over mere mortal matters, and grow indignant over trifling, petty dealings with those you ought to call brother and sister, for such they are!
Few are the things which shall endure and which we can thus cal “real;” all else must pass away and vanish—even the heavens themselves, though immortal they seem! How few are our days! Should they not then be spent in bringing about all of the happiness-happiness that is the only reasonable drive for man—that we can to our fellow beings, who, unaware, wallow in mortal mire?
“Life is short and we never have enough time for gladdening the hearts of those who travel the way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.”
Shared emotion (be it what it may), shared experience, shared wisdom, and most of all shared love—man, these by thy treasures! All else, but shadows and counterfeits! Place your hearts, your hopes, your passions upon them and your life shall not be in vain! Cling to any other prize, and dark shall be thy days and thy eye! For such shall vanish as smoke and your precious few days shall be spent in fruitless pursuit of that which you cannot obtain! Cross yourselves in these things! Arise, dear friends, and be men!
