What does it avail a man to gain a fortune and lose his soul?
I am becoming, perpetually, rapidly, a radical thinker again in my life. My meaning is, that when I see injustice, I refrain from shirking my responsibility to nature and mankind. I understand why so many men and women have fallen into a melancholy state of existence due to their beliefs that others just do not see nor heed their intellectual warning of future events.
No matter on what level we see our destiny, it occurs to me that what we currently believe, somehow has a greater impact that we can possibly imagine. Lincoln could only extend his inner most philosophical thinking to written page and what would become merely quotes dictated by Wikipedia. Did he know what impact he would have on future generations? Never, in his wildest conceptions, did he know his likeness would foster change in future generations by adorning US currency.
When I read and re-read history, I am more than astounded by how the populous merely accepts daily events as non-repeatable newspaper, Facebook, and Twitter articles. I was once absconded by a Berlin bus rider when he noticed that I was reading “Mein Kampf”, in German. He asked, indignantly, why I was reading that? When I replied, in German, because history repeats itself, except for those who internalize the lessons, he gave me a huge gruff and stormed from the bus.
As Bob Dylan once wrote, “The times, they are a-changing”. I hope so.
When I see an African-American heritage President, declining to preside over the 150 year remembrance of Gettysburg, after passing through Gettysburg on his entering Washington for his inauguration, and standing with his clasps hand across his genitals during a flag salute at Ft. Hood, rather that solute, as Commander-in-Chief, or at least place his hand over his heart, I am drawn to tears at the decay of our heritage.
In today’s colloquial, “What the fuck”. It is enough to draw a patriot to melancholy, without question. Am I at a point of “Give me liberty, or give me death”?