In these years inching towards getting older, I have come face to face with the irony of my peers, of people who lived life saying things they did not believe in, getting by with only words and nothing else, and now I see. I see why history repeats itself. The world is an old, grey-furred dog running after its own tail, spinning in circles. It is old only in its visage; in its heart, it is as naive as a puppy. There has been a murder of trust. All conversation of fighting for a better world has been nothing but a dagger in the backs of people like me—those who say what they believe in, who live it, who live and preach it. Most people I broke bread with, as we talked about how we will not repeat the errors of those who came before, have devoured their oaths and promises like they devoured their meals. This moral heartbreak has been a tiresome slow burn. How naive have I been? How convinced I was that we were the chosen ones, that we were to build it better together? I think of this, and it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart every second as I walk about and go about my days. I cannot do anything about it. I can only hold out the hope that there are others like me who I will come across, and we will live with virtue, kindness and compassion, and we will live in the attempt. The attempt is all there is—the attempt to make it all better.
For now, this is a bookend. This is an intermission in my understanding of the world as I go around, and I see how the world is as blind as those who raised them, that people would exchange the highest of values at the prospect of chump change and shallow puddles of cursory joy. All generations must suffer this, I believe, this mass wave, this mass reveal of the true nature of the world. There is little more I can say about it. I meet people, and sometimes, it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart to watch it all burn the same way, to watch it all burn as it always has, to watch everyone drinking water out of their cups, saying, “this is but a glass of water; it has no power over flames so far and wide” in unison. It breaks my heart.