A farewell letter to the concrete world:

To the green-pocketed, face-mopped, tummy-tucked world. To the goons within garrisons. To the greedy and grungy alike: I say farewell as I follow the only road not taken.

I will no longer be subject to supreme rulers and the anarchist self-righteous. I will no longer be a subject for the media’s maniacal mayhem, as they string survivors together by their necks and let them choke on forced choices.

I will not be a hand in the hatred, nor a voice for the violent. The turbulent eddies of our evolution have become wild and unruly. As we rest our rumps in the recesses of comfort and convenience our children toil through the trickery and deceit that our necessity for the prior creates.

We are the downfall of ourselves.

So too, hidden in the masses, I step forward, and I bid farewell.

I refuse to be partitioned any longer. I will not know segregation of self nor of the whole. I will not be a victim, a martyr, or a toll. There is no whisper in my ear, no signpost on my lawn, no flag in my hand.

I am no knight and I am no pawn.

I bid farewell to a nation of nations. To the greatness of a land once whole and free. To a people whose hands are all covered in oil and blood. I am not what we have become.

For to allow is to accept. To stay silent is to acknowledge. To exist without action to cease, is to permit. We are to blame for our filled prisons. For the thousands lost, and thousands taken, and thousands that have given up.

We are to blame for our tragedies and our murderers and drug addicts. We are to blame for our suicides and our rapes and our kidnappings. We as a people, who allow ourselves to be degraded to a state so defunct that our basic instincts for love and joy should be crushed by the necessity for power and our thirst for material wealth. For lust. For revenge. For anything that does not promote wellbeing for all lives involved.

No. We do not have all answers. And though the cost may feel greater than the gain, we cannot hope to rise before we fall.

But we should remember that we are what’s coming at day’s end—that we as the human race: We as co-inhabitants of Earth, as brothers and sisters and caretakers of the world. We, as the only widely known, high-minded life forms capable of protecting and furnishing a future. We are responsible for our actions—for our failings, our shortcomings and our mistakes.

I will not be a part of the blinded ignorant. I dare not give my hands and my heart to a failing system. I dare not fall prey to the grossly over-trusted, or the blatantly over-powered.

~

I dare not suffer the whims of political verbiage,

as if Antigone were never born and we as a people never accepted

the canonical verse that our reasoning is derived from.

I dare not suffer the whims of political verbiage,

as if the suits and ties dressed themselves and paid for themselves

and worked hard like the miller, or baker, or candlestick maker

that this ideal was forged on, though they claim as much, we know where their money

Is derived from.

I dare not suffer the whims of political verbiage,

as if the words our leaders spoke were still meant to instill hope and love

and truth and freedom— as if we could protest without suppression or

contest with oppression; how skewed this rhetoric of fate with which our lives

are derived from.

I dare not suffer the whims of political verbiage.

In whose house do I live? In whose clothes do I dress? In whose shoes do I stand?

Where are—what is—who am I? Like I would spend my time “fighting” their system,

only to see wrinkles in the mirror and find it’s all been spent. Here is where we realize where their strength

Is derived from

I dare not suffer the whims of political verbiage.

I Keep Calm and Carry on. Lips Sealed. Life is Good. Proper etiquette and diction to reduce friction

and proper friends in the proper place to keep safe. Two pills with a glass of water

and swallow down their lies only to find a copper dime and their greed— Lying where our poverty

is derived from

I dare not suffer the whims of political verbiage.

Dancing with the Oedipuses and Claudiuses of our generation—Our naked mothers

laid out like wet laundry because contemporary is correct , conformity is commendable,

and at day’s end we share a drink with our coworkers because vices are key,

and that’s where our strength

Is derived from

I dare not suffer the whims of political verbiage.

The nonchalant taunts of Vonnegut and Whitman as our pages grow sparse and meaningless, and our pencils grow wires and lights and begin sending messages

and talking to one another like we don’t even need our voices,

or our faces, or our hands, or our feet. They tell us everything we need to know,

and we smile, not wanting to fight against the giants, for our souls may succumb to this child’s play and fall maddened into chaos.

I dare not stoop to the level of insanity that stops peace, freedom, and kindness from being possible for all life—for life is all we are ever given, and with it we make all else.

~

The importance of our birth is rivaled only by the evidence of our death—but both are merely specs in comparison to what we have done in between.

My grandfather is nearly 70 years old. When he dies, he will have seen much of what we are capable of. He’ll have seen some of our worst wars, and greatest tragedies. He will have witnessed us killing ourselves over and over again, poisoning the very water we drink and the very air we breath.

He’ll have seen us use up most of our precious resources, taking them from each other until we crumpled and died. He will have seen some of the darkest moments that we will ever let ourselves be part of, and he will have remained idle while they happened.

And he will be been here for our triumphs. He will have seen the moments we endured and the moments we saved each other. He will have seen us leaving our planet and walking on the moon—he’ll have seen true love in the efforts of our new movements—because our voices can change everything, and we have realized that we have been sitting idle for too long.

So #YesAllWomen, and #BlackLivesMatter, and #BringBackOurGirls, and #AmINext will have made all the difference. He will have seen unity in #ICantBreathe, #JeSuisCharlie, and #illridewithyou. He will have seen support and strength in #UNICEF, and #HeForShe, and #IfYouFeelTooMuch.

He will have witnessed the world go from being changed by a man named Martin Luther King, Jr. to being changed by millions of us on Twitter and Facebook.

He will have seen the first single human flight, the first human to walk on mars, levitation, the real Ironman, and the first city to run on a self-sustaining, clean, and renewable power source.

Before we can rise we must fall.

Those that have come before us took part in one of the most painful, tragic, and difficult times in our history. They spent their lives, their only gift, to pave the way for us. For we are the future.

We have endeavored and must continue to do so. Falling down is hard. Climbing back up to untold heights —that’s where it gets exciting.

So ask yourself, in this time of unbelievable change, when we go, what will be our Parting Gift?

 

~

Relephant Read:

Eyes Wide Open: A Buddhist Teacher’s Perspective on Race & Social Change. {Podcast}

~

Author: Dyllon Charron

Editor: Renee Jahnke

Photo: Author’s Own