This view of
the individual
has rarely been expressed
in human history.
Today, it is
virtually non-existent.
virtually non-existent.
Yet this is the view with which
in various degrees of
longing, wistfulness, passion
and agonized confusion
the best of mankind’s youth start out in life.
It is not even a view,
for most of them, but a
foggy, groping, undefined sense made of raw pain and incommunicable happiness.
It is a sense of
enormous expectation,
the sense that one’s life is important,
that great achievements are within one’s capacity, and that great things lie ahead.
It is not in the nature of humans
nor of any living entity
to start out by giving up,
by spitting in one’s own face
and damning existence;
... that requires a process of corruption,
... that requires a process of corruption,
whose rapidity differs from man to man.
Some give up
at the first touch of pressure;
some sell out,
some run down by imperceptible degrees
and lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lost it.
Then all of these vanish in the vast swamp of their elders
who tell them persistently
that maturity consists of
abandoning one’s mind;
security,
of abandoning one’s values;
practicality, of losing self-esteem.
Yet a few
hold on and move on,
knowing
knowing
their fire
is not to be betrayed,
learning
learning
how to give it shape,
purpose and reality.
purpose and reality.
Whatever their future,
at the dawn of
at the dawn of
their lives,
people seek
people seek
a noble vision
of their nature
and of
life’s potential.
