Chains and Things

I'm not superstitious as you know, but in a lifetime, your mind is bound to wander. I'd just as soon curse God for the handicap I was born with, than view it as if it serves some greater purpose. The important point there is that it's a matter of perspective. Whether I'd be happier believing in a divine purpose isn't evidence for God, it's just psychology. And what if I simply don't have enough of an impaired conscience for that kind of self-deception? Do I then deserve to suffer?

Even if there WERE a God and hardship served a valuable purpose, more good could be accomplished in a two-way relationship with this all-powerful being, instead of one-way devotion to a negligent and absentee guardian, whose divine bounty depends on the uncharacteristically petty demand for blind faith without acknowledgement.

I don't pray, and I don't go to church, but if you don't think I've spent most of my life aching for a God-like being (that doesn't exist - because I would know if He did) to guide me and console me, then you're being offensively ignorant of my circumstances (but no surprise there). It's not *really* God I have a quarrel with, because God is just a fictional character invented by man. It's the men who follow God that I truly can't stand.

Anyway, that was a bit of a digression. I've considered many times whether my handicap is an obstacle I was meant to overcome - one that's supposed to make me stronger, or perhaps more sensitive - or if it's a kind of restraint holding me back from going on a rampage through this life. I often wonder what I might have accomplished if my situation had been different.

Maybe it's egotistical to think things would be significantly different. Maybe I'd just be a little bit happier, living a normal life, raising a family, working a decent job. But I am ambitious. I'm not ruthless, but I'm not lazy, either. I want. When Kramer asks George, "do you ever yearn?" - that's me. I just wish I wasn't held back by forces that - and I hate to admit this, but it is demonstrably true - are even stronger than the limitless reach of my desires. What's the point? Why was I born into these psychic chains?

But in reality, there is no meaning. No purpose. Other than what we invent for ourselves. The universe doesn't care if we live or die. All that we have and ever will accomplish will one day be dust in the wind. And a few millenia after that there won't even be dust or wind because the planet will be gone. All life will be gone. There may be other life at some point. In the vast expanse of time and space, there might even be separate sources of life that meet.

Or there might not. Regardless, nothing is eternal. The only thing that matters is the here and now - which, in a cosmic sense, extends beyond any one person's lifetime. There's no sense in squandering the limited resources we have, and accelerating ourselves toward our inevitable end. Our existence may be a tiny blip on the scale of time, but it's all we have.

The universe is a harsh and apathetic arena. Pain is inescapable. We should bless the fact that we are able to experience joy and pleasure - and we should not overextend ourselves to create further suffering over that fact. The void of space doesn't care which dog eats which dog, because all dogs will be consumed by it in the end. Why should we not, then, strive to create a puppy paradise in the interim?

If killing you would make me happier, and I had the power to do it, who's to say what would happen? The disadvantaged stand intrinsically upon higher moral ground, simply because they have not been exposed to the corrupting influence of power. We would all like to believe that we'd have the restraint to put the One Ring down, but I think it's better for our conscience if none of us were ever confronted by that choice.

Democracy is ideologically equivalent to socialism. There is no such thing as equality so long as power imbalances persist. The only good ruler is the one who doesn't want the crown - and such a ruler would hand the crown off at the first chance, likely to one of the many clamoring to wield the power it represents. I think about all of these things when I think about my chains. But it doesn't get me any closer to a resolution.