Month: April 2008

Set sail, against the wind,

under the misguiding light of faulty beacons

We live in a time in which those vested authority are not those who must properly wield it.

Credentials bestowed by self-honored institutions amount to nothing but certificates of pretension which do not qualify the entitled but rather label the entitled as qualified.

Those who are charged with cultivating the minds of the children…

What is required: a degree, formal wear

What should be required: heroic virtue which inspires

Result: A mediocre education producing mediocre citizens, wracked with fears, superstitions and indecisions, who practice the vices and lack a sober frame of reference on the world, and as a result do not have the inclination nor the ability to judge wisely. Fools elect charming pimps.

Those who are charged with guarding the citizens from harm…

What is required: A strong body, token training

What should be required: A lifelong of training in prudence, magnanimity, temperance, justice and fortitude

Result: Guardians who systematically abuse their power and betray the people by covering their own intrigues and corruptions, who serve themselves rather than a greater ideal of justice, who exercise bias in their judgments and cruelty in force. Men who serve the highest bidder rather than the lawful authority; men whose allegiance and duty is owed to plunder.

1  A time there was when disorder ruled
Human lives, which were then, like lives of beasts,
Enslaved to force; nor was there then reward
For the good, nor for the wicked punishment.
5  Next, it seems to me, humans established laws
For punishment, that justice might rule
Over the tribe of mortals, and wanton injury be subdued;
And whosoever did wrong was penalized.
Next, as the laws held [mortals] back from deeds
10 Of open violence. but still such deeds
Were done in secret,–then, I think,
Some shrewd man first, a man in judgment wise,
Found for mortals the fear of gods,
Thereby to frighten the wicked should they
15 Even act or speak or scheme in secret.
Hence it was that he introduced the divine
Telling how the divinity enjoys endless life,
Hears and sees, and takes thought
And attends to things, and his nature is divine,
20 So that everything which mortals say is heard
And everything done is visible.
Even if you plan in silence some evil deed
It will not be hidden from the gods: for discernment
Lies in them. So, speaking words like these,
25 The sweetest teaching did he introduce,
Concealing truth under untrue speech.
The place he spoke of as the gods’ abode
Was that by which he might awe humans most,–
The place from which, he knew, terrors came to mortals
30 And things advantageous in their wearisome life–
The revolving heaven above, in which dwell
The lightnings, and awesome claps
Of thunder, and the starry face of heaven,
Beautiful and intricate by that wise craftsman Time,–
35 From which, too, the meteor’s glowing mass speeds
And wet thunderstorm pours forth upon the earth.
Such were the fears with which he surrounded mortals,
And to the divinity he gave a fitting home,
By this his speech, and in a fitting place,
40 And [thus] extinguished lawlessness by laws.

Max Payne

The past is a gaping hole. You try to run from it, but the more you run, the deeper, more terrible it grows behind you, its edges yawning at your heels. Your only chance is to turn around and face it. But it’s like looking down into the grave of your love, or kissing the mouth of a gun, a bullet trembling in its dark nest, ready to blow your head off.

There are no choices. Nothing but a straight line. The illusion comes afterwards, when you ask ‘Why me?’ and ‘What if?’. When you look back and see the branches, like a pruned bonsai tree, or forked lightning. If you had done something differently, it wouldn’t be you. It would be someone else looking back, asking a different set of questions.

Your past has a way of sneaking up on you. You’ll hear broken echoes of it everywhere, like a bad replay. You’ll get mad at everyone for reminding you about it, even if it’s all in your head.

Saetia

I am the horizon.
I have dreamed of tracing rings around this world.
My arms are stretched to forever.
My fingers shake with the fear of control.
The fear I know you all know so well.
We all lay claim to our destinies.
Yet we all rise and fall with the current.