Have we learned nothing from history? Have the scores of people crippled, nay, murdered by discrimination, bigotry, hatred, etc. been for nothing? History is cyclical, yet some things bear no repeating. But we stand on the cusp of returning to some of the darkest times in our history. The precipice of destruction, we have precariously perched ourselves. Do we dare to climb back down? Or have we danced too close to the edge, falling our only recourse? If to err is human, we have personified our nature to perfection.
It is baffling to witness our inability and/or flat out refusal to think objectively. As though free thinking and enlightenment be punishable by death. Though perceived and regarded as truth; perpetuated by those seeking to keep us enslaved to subjectivity and ignorance, the above is hardly the case. Is this the legacy we will leave on this earth? Will the generations to come look back shamefully? Will they be proud? Will they be encouraged? Will there be future generations? If we are indeed masters of our fates and captains of our souls, where are we sailing? Off the edge of the earth; to oblivion? To Zion? To what promised land have we directed our rudder, if any at all?
Is the plight of humanity inevitable? Not so. The status quo can be upset, traditions exposed, truths revealed. We have the capability to conceive thought greater than that of current comprehension. The ability innately sewn in us, woven into the very construct of our being. Though we share many an attribute with more primitive organisms: tenacity, will, power to overcome, problem solving, it is our intellectual autonomy which garners humanity’s greatest achievements. Let us use this, among all gifts, to deliver ourselves from peril.