My name is not important. It was the first of many predetermined decisions that I myself had no say in. But today I went outside and the clouds looked like giant white manatees swimming through the depths of the sky, and it was beautiful. And I'm only mentioning this because it was beautiful. And every single beautiful thing is always worth mentioning.
I was sitting on my porch and letting the sun rub against my skin, when I heard a small voice calling out to me. At first I could not here exactly what the voice was saying but it sounded like a question. I looked down and noticed a small colony of ants walking in a line from one end of the sidewalk to the other except for one who stood still. The voice called out again and I leaned in to hear what it was saying.
"What's the difference?" It called.
And I said, "What?"
"What's the difference," it said again, "between you and I? Every day so many of you live your life just like we do directly below your feet. Working and working. Working so much it's become like an instinct for you. And are you even sure who, or what, you're working for? You work because they tell you to work. They make you think your value lies in the amount of work you do, or how much you get paid to do such work. Then you teach your children that they too must work, in order to acheive their dreams and desires, or your dreams and desires for them. You encourage them to walk in straight lines in the same direction to the same destination. Warn them not to stray, because it's not safe, not secure. But in some ways you are worse than us. You are slaves to money and to time. Or rather, you are slaves to time, and because of that, devote your lives to money in order to slow down time. We are mearly slaves to survival. Survival. This concept must seem foreign to you because you've all become so comfortable and complacent that you're barely even alive."
He paused.
"Stand up and live."
And with that, he fell back in line. I tried to keep an eye on him, but lost him in the line