I am no hero, I am but a man

I am no hero, I am but a man.  I am no Prince Charming.  I have no sword, no shield, and no wild stallion.  I don't have the physical body of a god; I am but mortal and fallible and human; more Grizzly Adams than Adonis; fearful of death and pain.  I have made more mistakes in life already than many have had birthdays, but am fully aware and admit so.  I disbelieve in love, yet daily find myself more full of it than I know what to do with.

I am no hero, I am but a man.  A foolish man, who dares to try and be happy in a world of woe, a world of pain and suffering, a natural world that has consumed us in all our desperate attempts to modernize and deceive ourselves into thinking we've distanced ourselves from it.  We are not distant from it, nature and life and death is all around us constantly.  We will never be rid of it, so long as we are a living and breathing species living on a planet that is life itself.  We are our own hope for the future and our own natural predator; a world in which both sides are equally repugnant to most of us.

I am no hero, I am but a man.  I have hurt people, and had pain done unto me.  I have eaten regret, not merely tasted it; felt and owned up to the feeling of remorse and allowed some to continue to haunt me to this day; knowing that pain is a lesson, a guide to keep me from walking down those paths again.  Even though some are the bitter double edged swords that beg me to question "If I'd only...," "I should have...," "should I have...?" "Could there be another chance...?" That delicate and perilous balance those who understand the subject know so well; that delicate balance between keeping the past fresh in your mind to keep the lessons alive, while trying to keep the other eye on both the present and the future, and the terrible folly of thinking it is possible.

I am no hero, I am but a man.  I am flawed, and human, and mortal.  And I always shall be.  As we all are, and ever shall we be.  This modern and deceitful life pushes us to be a perfection, to be what we are not and cannot ever be.  I say to you deny this force; throw off this artificial and superficial force driving you into such external and painful despair, forcing you to internalize it and believe it comes from within.  Inside you are you, and that is all the perfection you shall ever need to have.

I say to you to own your humanity, to own your mortality, to own your bodies and minds and flaws and mistakes.  Own your past, your present and your future.  Be not selfish in this quest, share that love with others.  Understand that your fellow humans, whether they be homeless on the street or suit clad millionaires, all suffer your same pains and woes and joys and fears.  Because we are all human, we are all a species, together trying to survive.  You must try to help the others that make our species, not the individual of yourself; a species with a great and terrible responsibility.  Then we move ourselves forward, more ourselves to care for the rest of our living brethren as well.  Own our responsibility, own ourselves, own the future; a real future, a real future of progress and the real possibility of happiness.

We do not have this in the world today.  Today we have power and greed, misunderstanding and hatred.  We have death and pains that none should experience.  We have those asking for equality around the world being met with fear and violence.  We desensitize and dehumanize ourselves in a world where such pain and suffering and sadness are made entertainment to us, a spectacle of rape and slaughter and murder a button push away, blinded by the veil of entertainment, never able to realize the horrible truth that there are those in the world to whom these horrors are daily and real, that these horrors are life, not entertainment.

Yet in this modern world, it is words that are the horrifying thing; words are what we ban; are what we ostracize and demonize.  Because words, like these words I'm writing to you all know, are the words that drive us to think and to feel, to awaken the humanity within your hearts to look at the world and go "This is wrong."  The powerful want control of the words, because words are the true power.  Too long have we allowed others to use words to blind us, to guide us and imprison and shackle us.  It is our turn to discover our voice, to discover our own words.  It is by words we demand what's right and expose the artificial world that desensitizes us  all, that makes us internalize our pains and drives us into the obscurity of anonymity.

You are not anonymous in a crowd, a crowd with a voice demanding justice, only alone are you anonymous.  Stand tall my people, stand tall my friends, tell yourselves you are not a hero, you are a human, demanding with your sibling humans what is right and good in the world.  A good world is not an oppressed world, where people use words like value and morals to justify placing limitations on their fellow humans, to justify death and rape and slaughter on any level.  A good world does not deny a species with the ability to choose and think it's right to do so.  Make this a good world, we are all humans of equality, where rights are available to all, not privileged to a few.  Own your pain my fellow siblings of humanity, but do not let it shackle you.  Own your pasts to fix your presents so that you may claim your futures.  Do this my siblings, my kin, and we shall all as one change the world.  Be the unified voice, and in doing so, we shall own our justice.  

I am no hero, I am but a man.  We are no heroes, we are but humans.  We are not individuals, we are a species.  We are not separate, we are equal, and alive in this tiny world we all call home.  It is time to be one, to be the human species, and to be the whole.