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“I think therefore I am…”
— Rene Descartes
…
Today is different.
The times of the human race I mean.
Faster. But too fast?
Are we outpacing our mind’s ability to make sense of life itself?
I truly don’t know…
…
But, then again, we have unnaturally moved so far beyond Mother Nature and so quickly, it will always be different.
Progress is not the linear movement most people think that it is.
“Progress” is a system of failures and resets; lofty subjectivity balanced by blunt objectivity.
It’s natural progression, even from the insanely diverted, exponentially fast nature of the human being compared to the rest of the kingdom.
Though…we’re still pretty animalistic.
Our emotions still take us.
They cause irrationality, self-indulgence, self-sabotage, and more often than it should, self-harm.
Self-harm constructed from our inability to indulge in our souls.
We’re lost.
Somewhere between over-consumption and keeping up the fires of ideological nonsense.
Our reactions to the world around us most of the time are still very defensive or offensive rather than thoughtful and rational. We still live for love and lust, greed and power.
So…
Do we really know who we are?
Who am I?
Our intelligence definitely sets us apart, even from our closest relative, the chimpanzee.
Our ability to foreshadow, to plan, to have memory beyond instinct. To patiently process, to imagine, to construct the unnatural in a very natural world.
To take elements and substances from the Earth and solidify towers and bend the elements to our will.
Really…
It’s just short of magic when you think about it.
So, what keeps a man from knowing himself then?
To truly know himself.
When the world we know has been terraformed to fit human vision and defiance of nature itself. When this world couldn’t exist without the contribution of those brave enough to know themselves.
The ones to embrace the “magic”. To go beyond normalcy. To bend the world by contributing without fear.
To not know what he should do, but why he should do it.
To not know how to influence but to do it from the soul rather than the mind.
To give everything that he is purely for the pride to say that he did life with everything he had from a position that no one else could.
Legacy is built by something else.
When you hear “legacy”, what do you think?
Do you think bloodlines? Do you think wealth and castles and your name etched into the stones of time? Do you think brand and empire and stages?
Although none of these are necessarily bad — even though everyone wants to scream evil when someone has more material than them — they’re only a representation.
A representation of a soul.
Of what’s at the center of the man who took it from its safe space inside and passed the wall of fear to make it come to life.
And that’s what legacy truly is.
Good legacy exists…and so does evil.
Not many would question the marks left on the world by Hitler, Vlad the Impaler, or the fallen angel Satan who historically stole the future of living in Eden for all future generations.
It’s the mark that matters.
And to me…
So many marks have been left unmade.
That’s how I see the world. I see every human as a synaptic potential to change what we are, how well we live, and how far we go.
Yet, the ground is full of graves made home by people who never had the chance to be their best. Or people too afraid to do so. Or people unfairly born into circumstances that never gave them the chance to know that potential always exists.
…
It’s that last part though, Reader.
To me, unfairness is far from being the major reason for all of that untapped potential.
And if that is true, then it means you’re afraid.
You may only be afraid of yourself.
Afraid to excite legacy from your veins.
And fear of ourselves does one thing above all else. It keeps you from becoming yourself.
From becoming your favorite person.
From seeing that no one could do your life better than you.
Fear keeps you from asking, from dissecting, and from putting yourself to the test.
And death itself will be your judge in the end.
When you realize there is no time left. When you have to look back on life because there is no looking forward.
When you see that full never meant being busy, it meant to be you.
To allow soul and heart to bring out the best in you.
When does a man know himself then?
I’d say it’s when he humbly asks the world to be his teacher, his Muse. In opposition to choosing to arrogantly assume all of what he can be is determined strictly from the god-like ability to “know”.
It makes sense when we put something above and beyond us to lead us.
That’s what some call “God”. The universal power. The intended consciousness.
It’s something that man gives himself to, that he must give himself to. Because to be a god is to see yourself as the creator of, not a creator for.
It’s not that all-knowing consciousness exists in the form of a god, it’s that all-knowing consciousness exists within the human experience, through the creations of conduits that is the human itself.
That’s why it’s so important to give ourselves — our gifts and ideas and character — to the world as a humble contribution rather than a dictatorial statement.
Because the human consciousness will guide itself.
And its direction is determined by how a person’s most authentic and courageous contribution to it.
…
A man knows himself when he truly chooses to take on the adventure.
The unknown.
The inevitable failures that hone him.
The unmeasurable intensity of giving himself for the tiny return of admiration.
The choice to take as many with him, which teaches him true love.
The boldness of past, present, and future that holds all wisdom.
To know thyself
— to me —
means to give all of thyself to the world and do it with all that we have, both in the brightest of days and darkest of nights.
Truth and Love, Reader.
…
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Koke Mayayo (TheVisualKiller) on Unsplash