The End
I’ve heard the
great lie spill out of the mouths of teachers and lawmakers alike
all my life. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal. It’s no lie at face value. Everyone’s
born alone, naked with nothing and we all die alone, taking nothing
with us. But in between those two points there has never been
nor will there ever be equality.
A part of me is empathetic
to the activist and lawmakers who yearn to create this new world
order where every person shares equally in life’s abundant
riches. But reality is filled with chaos and the hearts and minds
of men reflect this chaos. If there is a supreme being somewhere
listening to the spiritual cries of men, I suspect it sounds similar
to the cacophony of gamblers at a horse track screaming for their
lucky number to pull through. The approach to life by each individual
every bit as diversified as those same gamblers betting on their
horse; some bet because they like the horses name, others by the
horses bloodline, still others use each horses running history
to calculate scientifically the probability of success, but in
the end the ratio will always be disproportionate, some win, many
lose.
After three decades
in this world I’ve learned that every experience offers the
opportunity to become more than equal. Still, there is no table
by which one can measure success. Consciousness, like muscle tissue,
atrophies away without use and all around there seems to be an
abundance of decay. The head of state or corporate businessman
is no more aware of the surrounding world than the junkie on the
street, most likely less. Life is an aimless dream shifting constantly
between euphoric, selfish bliss and bottomless, reflective nightmares.
It’s meaning only momentary context interpreted loosely by
the observer called self. There in lies the fallacy of equality,
for things to be equal there must be a measurable unit by which
to judge them. In the end, most live and die, never realizing
they are both the unit and its measure.
- Aimless John Valentine 2002
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