Growing Old

Growing old has nothing to do with growing up. 

I’ve heard the most pure ancient wisdom spill from the lips of children, and I’ve seen the most foolish of old men and their foolish flock let the whole world burn around them expecting to be saved from the very flames they set.  It’s not divine intervention, and it sure isn’t blind luck, the grand mystery is that there is no mystery.  The truth behind it all has always been right in front of us. 

We’re just been too terrified to let ourselves see it. 

Except those like you and I of course, the few that have always seen something wrong with the way the world is and have known nothing more than to try and stand up to this nameless grand injustice.  Our numbers have never been many, and even fewer still have the courage to fight for what’s right anymore.  I’ve lost so many brothers and sisters to this that I stopped counting a long time ago, but it’s never has been a game of numbers though, our continuing existence is the purest of proofs to this truth.  We’ve never been afraid to hide in the darkest of shadows and bide our time, alone in wait for our chance to strike.  The others have always been afraid of this, that’s why they franticly point their lights into the dark trying to root us out, but they’re always too terrified to look in the most awful of places and that’s where we’ve always been waiting for them.

The blows of truth have always been the most devastating against our enemy, and those trying to deny it are always shaking in terror at the mere thought of having to endure even one.  It’s in this power where our numbers become meaningless, because we need only one of us to make it through, and we still have plenty more than that ready to die trying. 

All of our purest forms have become so fragile though and this makes it so easy for us to let them fall apart and get lost along the way through our lives.  After losing the fight for so long now, I can’t really blame the ones that stand against us.  There’s something that feels so impossible about keeping up this fight in the face of such awful odds.  But for myself, and those like me, there is no choice in the matter.  We cannot cage this beast, this bloodlust for injustice and the fight for those everyone else seems to throws to the wolves.  Never has the need been greater than now, things are as bad as they’ve ever been and despite the fact that they will no doubt get worse, we’ll never give up, we’ll never stop fighting, there is nothing that can change this. 

Even our defeats, they cannot stop this rhythm once it has begun.  When you stand up for something greater than yourself it finds a way of living in all of us, and even though they can put us down one at a time, they’ve never been able to stop those who will take our place when we’re gone and fight for what’s right.  This is our plight, to march into a certain death with a purpose so many spend their whole lives looking for but are too terrified to take hold of.

Those who stand against us, they’re caught up in the luster of false promises and easy answers.  After all, it takes courage to walk into the dark and so few carry that kind of courage with them.  This is why we’ve always told the story of the hero.  To hold those virtues at a comfortable distance just out of the reach of responsibility, and to hope that when the time comes, one will come along to save us all.  That’s never been the way things have worked though, and if there is only one thing that all of this has taught me, it is that our salvation lies within, and the only way out of this is to dig deep and find what we can in ourselves.…