Rain doesn’t start as a drop; a cloud begins to empty its
content of moisture in a torrential release, like a damn breaking. But no
matter how hard or how much it rains we feel it one drop at a time. When we
soak, we are soaked by individual droplets: small pieces of that release broken
from the whole and falling desperately towards earth. When rivers rise and
flood, and land tears away from the slopes of mountains, when the sea engulfs
us – it all happens one drop at a time. So we too, a living mass of billions of
people, do not destroy as a whole, do not irrigate as a whole, we do so
individually. All the horrors of which we are capable are enacted one person at
a time. All the good that we bring, all the beauty we create, is done so by
individuals. And just like each drop of water is indistinguishable from any
other, though unique it may be, so we too are just single parts of a whole – a whole
from which we are not really all that different.
Each person, regardless of race or creed, carries within
themselves all of what a human being is capable. Our being a part of the
greater mass ensures that we are just a small, yet an exact, manifestation of
humanity’s whole. The power to inundate, the power to create and grow, the
power to choose which of those paths are ours, is something contained within
each of us as well.
The water, once released, once born, immediately takes on a
course towards earth. That course is altered from the second of release by
dozens of factors, like wind, other drops of water, pressures rising from earth
itself. So we too, from the moment we are born have our trajectories constantly
affected by our environment. But just as the water has no choice but to
eventually hit earth and bring its effect, whether that of destruction of
irrigation, regardless of influence on where it will land, so we too,
inevitably, leave our mark upon the planet.
There is only one difference between us and the rain,
similar to the difference between ourselves and the other species who live on
this rock, and that is choice. Our trajectory is hard to break, the influences
of the world, with its winds and pressures and other peoples, are hard to navigate,
but in the end we are capable of doing so. We are capable of choosing our effect,
we are capable of deciding where on this planet we will land. That is an
enormous power that each individual holds. No matter how insignificant we feel,
there is no denying that we are a very real part of a whole which cannot
function without us, that when we are gone, or when we decide to leave, we must
be replaced for the whole to continue to function.
Regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, or any other “something”
we choose to differentiate ourselves, the fact remains that we came from the
same place, and that we are going in the same direction and we will bring our effect
to bear. For any person to claim they are the right form of human, is for a
droplet of rain to say it is more rain than another. We come from the same
place, though our manifestations are slightly different, at the end of the day
we are just copies and mutations of the same genetic code. Even from the point
of religion, if we are all children of God, then we cannot be made wrong. There
are no sins worse than others, except for the 7 deadly sins, none of which say
anything about sex, religion, race, sexual preference or anything else that
defines who we are – the deadly sins only define choices and actions. There is
no religion on this planet which claims that the “sins” of who we are, are
worse than the sins of our choices.
This makes who we are irrelevant. The only important thing
to consider about a human being when deciding whether they are good or evil,
right or wrong, is their actions toward our home and toward each of us. Does it
matter whether the person who saves your drowning child is a homosexual Mongoloid
Christian male, or a heterosexual Caucasoid Jewish female, or a bi-sexual
Negroid Muslim hermaphrodite? Will you be any less grateful to one than
another?
As long as we continue to judge people based on aspects of
their lives over which they have little to no control, we continue to keep open
the doors of inequality and injustice – which are the only things which stand
in the way of our development as a species. If today White, Christian males are
in power, but the doors for inequality are open, it means one day some other
group will take control. And as long as those doors stay open, the grip of
control will continue to shift. This does nothing to improve our lives, it only
perpetuates actions, like war, theft of natural resources, and exploitation,
which destroy lives. And if we are willing to destroy the lives of others so
that we may save our own, or worse, to make ours better, then we again, in the
face of truth and justice, blatantly state that though we come from the same
place, though we are part of the same whole, one droplet of rain is more
important, is better, than another.
To me that is more than nonsensical, it is idiotic. And if
we believe people who make such claims, claims which are contrary to logic and
contrary to what is claimed to be the word of God, what does that make us? If
we stand by and allow pure, exposed, lies to be thrown in our face, when we are
fully aware that they are lies, what does that make us? If we continue to
benefit from things which we have not earned, realities for which we have not
worked to create – which are so simply because of where and from whom we were
born, what kind of people are we? When we have to continue to fight to grant
individual groups equal rights, one at a time, how stupid does that makes us? If
we realize that we cannot discriminate against one group (i.e. Women, Blacks…),
how have we not come to the conclusion that we cannot discriminate against
anybody? We claim to be intelligent, but have remained blind to that simple
truth for thousands of years. Instead of focusing time, money and energy on the
very real problems of our world, we continue to waste our resources battling
over something which is self evident: equality.
We have in our hands the greatest tool yet created by man:
the ability to communicate with the world – without censorship. Can we, for a
moment, take that ability, leave the cats and the memes alone for just a day,
and proclaim our realization of the truth of our equality. Can we take a moment
and in a voice almost every person on the planet will hear, say that we are not
the fools we seem to be, that we know the truth, and that we will have no more
lies? Can we say to each other that we realize how important each of us are,
that each of us deserves the respect of everyone else simply for the reason
that we, each of us, are human? That the choices we make, the decisions we enact
on the world and each other, are the only thing which matter and determine the
quality of our humanity? And that anyone who says otherwise is an enemy of
humanity, and therefore an enemy of each one of us, and that we will not stand
to have enemies controlling our lives and the future of our race.
I believe we can because I believe in the fact that deep down
inside each one of us, beyond the greed and jealousy and misunderstanding and
unfounded hate, we are capable of every good which is possible for our species.
I believe that within each of us there lies justice, truth and respect. I
believe that we all have the ability to change and grow and know what is right,
not what is easy, but what is right.
I believe in us.
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