It Has To [re]Start Somewhere
Every day I find I am becoming fired up about something. We talked about Thoreau outside the other day, and instead of my usual literature classroom behavior--gazing out the window, probably reciting poetry in my head--I couldn't stop talking. I talked about man without limits, humanity without artificial additions, freedom, simplicity...I couldn't stop. This is a start.
SDS and ACLU held a Freedom of Speech rally and burned the flag. I was excited. I was burning. I talked to my sister about activism and anger, about soldiers fighting back, about the difference between speaking out against something, and acting for something. I was angry. I started caring again. This is a start.
I questioned my professor about "the selfish gene"--I'd like to give Richard Dawkins a piece of my mind, literally. I'd like to see if he could find the selfish gene in me, maybe videotape it murdering all the other genes. I said "this is assuming a gene can foresee the future, or predict what is about to happen next". And my professor says "that's exaclty what it doesn't mean", to which I replied "then it's not the gene itself that makes the decision, it's the body with which it's inhabiting". He says "well, yes, genes determine behavior, if that's what you mean." "Why no, that's not what I mean..at all". And this is where he stops trying and continues with his speech "it's not the individual who is fighting, its the gene..." and so on and so forth. But the thing is....I cared again. I felt passion in that moment. I started to believe in something again. This is a start.
For a while (even now?) my mind was somewhat numb to everything, and therefore highly receptive to all sorts of theories and equations and beliefs and ideas; and my spirit was so vulnerable that I saw myself beginning to accept everything and anything as a possible truth, never giving the effort to question it or debate it because I just didn't know, and I didn't have the energy to care. I don't know what to call this.
But there are those people (that one person) who is like air after a lifetime of holding your breath. That one person who lights a candle in your cave, who says "yes" to everyone else's "no's", an olive branch after endless days of water, that one person who makes you realize that you stil have a little bit of something left to give, a little bit of life left in you. Yeah...this is a start, a very good start.
