Friends, acquaintances, strangers, I bid thee, which of two takes precedence?
Be it a nobler aim to obstruct thy door and remain in thy domicile until the end of time?
Or be it nobler to venture into the unknown, unprotected and on pain of possible demise?
'Tis the question at heart.
'Tis a question of the security of the citizenry.

When death's dark emissary cometh with haste, in what manner shall he find thee?
Shall thee be secured in thy possessions, apart from danger, and unharmed all these years bygone?
Or shall the emissary find thee in a different state, perhaps one of felicity?
'Tis the question of the security of the citizenry.

Yea, there are those few proud that are the makes of heroic tales profound.
They forewent the promise of security for the mere taste of an ascended delicacy, for a mere sampling of the honey that floweth from the tree of liberty.

And when the great father bids of me, "Which of these were you, enslaved or free?"
My retort shall be simple.
In this grand question concerning the security of the citizenry, I forewent my security in favor of the great gift that is liberty.

In the matter of the state and her subjects, and in times of great turmoil, the liberties of the people are oft lain to the side, so that they may live another day free of death's eternal sleep.
Yea, what is the value of life if its experience is cheap?
To what extent are we thinkers free if our place in the flock is that of sheep?

Thy liberties are a priceless commodity.
'Tis a question of the security of the citizenry.

In times of despair it is oft that a man can lose his way.  
It is easy to succumb to the fearful whirls of chaos.  
It is natural to feel as if one's hope has fled in a hasty retreat.  
Yea, it is merely logical for him to overwhelmingly desire surrender, an end to all of the fighting.  

Man is but an exhaustible creature as are the many other beasts of the land.  
The difference, however, is in the species’ resolve to overcome these feelings and push forward past seemingly insurmountable mountains.  
Whereas the beast feels compelled to lay down when all options have been exhausted, man is oft characterized by his foolishly blind refusal to simply stop and allow the happening to occur.  
There lies not logic within this equation.  
There is a deeper emotion that oft quickly and violently surfaces with the event horizon.  

Resolve is this deep, driving force within him.  
It lays dormant for a majority of his life.  
And there are also those belonging to mankind whose determination has failed to surface.  
And this failure has oft been directly attributed to their deaths.

One must understand that it is possible in this world to fail at an attempted task.
Failure is merely the absence of or inability to conjure one’s determination.  
But one must also comprehend that if man can look within himself and manage to reach the axis in which determination surfaces that nothing, my friends, is impossible for him.

Perhaps love is as elusive as monetary wealth is to the masses.  
Perhaps love is no more a reality than the endless days we have spent melding our minds to a piece of virtual property that trades us our health for a few moments of excitement and a few hours absent of boredom.

My friend, love eludes me more and more with each setting of the sun.
I am not so sure that I believe it even exists any longer.
Perhaps love eludes me because I chase a fictional object.  
Perhaps I am living analogous to the ***** addict.  
One pursues the dragon; the other pursues romance.  
I seek a woman who I connect with on such a level that I am unable to articulate the degree to which I love her.  
Yet, she knows in her heart of hearts where I stand and she stands there with me.

Society dictates that our masculinity is dependent on abstaining from thoughts and words that might be construed to lack a rugged demeanor.  
Yet I say to you, every man thinks of what I write of today.  
The vast majority of them are too restrained by society’s trivial notion of a man to even engage their own minds in the thought of the subject.  
They act as if the rest of the world can hear their thoughts and relay what they have heard to others.

The world is a jury, a harsher judge than the most heartless, spectators in a gladiatorial match, watching one's every move, criticizing one's every flinch.  
Yet, they can only maintain a level of hypocrisy for so long before the bounds of their walls cave upon them.

There are those who would state that they are content with the presence of a physical relationship and the absence of an emotional connection.  
They are but fools.  
They are pursuers of immediate gratification and will be recipients of nothing more.  
Their lives will be shadowed by the emptiness that they caused unto so many others and their equation in life will not result in equity.

The love I speak of friend is an emotion that is triggered merely by the most subtle of references to the beloved.  
It is a flooding of the capillaries,  a fluttering of the heart, a sweating of the brow, an inward heave of the stomach, and the settling of an utter bliss.  
These are the physical symptoms of the emotion and the emotion is a cranial symptom of the connection.  Love, my friend, I do believe is a balance of two individuals that is caused by a pairing that can only be so perfectly designed by one who is omnipotent.

So far I must admit to you that I have not felt paired with an individual.  
There were physical connections with many, and emotional connections with few.  
Yet, even in the most intense emotional connection there was something lacking.  
There was a piece of the puzzle missing.  
When her and my eyes met, there was not a parallel connection.  

True love, my friend, is but a connection that shall be made but once.  I have not made that connection yet and perhaps it would be inappropriate for me to theorize further.  
Yet, it is those who dared to theorize that have revolutionized this planet ten fold because their thoughts became an idea.
The idea became a design.
The design grew to be tangible.
The tangible became a reality.

Therefore, my friend, I theorize that I will one day find this obscure love that so many on this Earth do not have in their possession.  
And when I find this obscure connection, my friend, I shall speak of it more.  
I shall articulate it to the best of my ability so that others may know better what they pursue and may find it in due time.

Life is a beautiful thing.

Even when faced with the most horrid of circumstances, I have seen the most beautiful things produced.  Like a flower in the desert, this world has a way of beautifully coating the most rigid surfaces of itself.  My friend, I have seen terrible things in my short life time.

Life is the vine that forced its way through the broken sidewalk and climbed up a crumbling building.  Life is the smile of that child surrounded by the worst living conditions.  Life is happiness in the most unhappy of places.  Life is surviving the worst event and mustering the courage to speak of it to others.  Life is rising above one’s past.  

Life is living not one day at a time, but one lifetime at a time.  Life is hoping for a better world and seeing that dream become a reality.  Life is watching the world crumble around you and still finding that one piece of beauty that takes your breath away.  Life is seeing beyond the surface of an area, and into the lives of those who inhabit it.

Life is being optimistic in the face of the strongest storms.  It amazes me, given all the evil that I despise on this planet, that I can still find beauty in this place.

Beauty is a miracle.  It is a gift from God.  It is an assertion by him that gives humanity that little push that we need to continue on.

Life is beautiful.

Life is watching an evil thing beget something pure unintentionally.  Life cannot be extinguished.  It cannot be ignored.  It cannot be denied.  It is not subtle.  It is not complex.  It is beautifully simple, and it is miraculously obvious.

Life is what you choose to see.  And if you choose to see of all of it, you will see terrible things, but, even in the most terrible of sights, there is still beauty.  It lingers.  It refuses to die.  It is infinite.  It is indescribable at times.  It is all that I have left.  It is all that I ever wanted to have left.  It motivates me to survive, to better my species.  Life is everything, and the shadows that we see on a daily basis are merely the reflection of all that is good behind it.  

Let it be known that I love life.

Hope is a beautiful thing.  
It inspires the cynical and comforts the sad.  
Hope is the adrenaline of the human race’s resolution to overcome the most impossible obstacles.  

Yet, how far can an emotion go before it is no longer the firing of neurons but a tangible product that is real and alive?
In a world so plagued by suffering it seems as if we are doomed to repeat our mistakes and regress with every consecutive war.  
It seems that we are all suicidal maniacs hell-bent on losing the final round of Russian roulette.  

Yet, hope prevails.  
Why won’t it die so that we can **** each other in peace?
My friend, there is something terribly wrong with our world.  Leaders abuse their power and the innocent suffer.  
The only way a sane person can cope with this reality is to turn a blind eye.  

But, I cannot.  
I will not.  
I must not.