Michael
Joseph Arleth
Copyright 2001
What brings me to the keyboard today? The hate sweeping America, it is not a rational hate. Some people don't hate, "terrorists" or "foreign threats." They are demoralizing the peaceful and beneficial, Arab-Americans.
These are our country-men. We need to not only be tolerant of the differences; we need to celebrate the differences. For it is the differences that help us to know we are alive. Without the difference in skin color would we know whether we exist or not? It would be more difficult. Without the difference in cuisine, would we know if our food was bland? I would have to say that could lead to a feeling of worthlessness. We grab life by the edges. This is the only true way to prove reality, by my scorebook at least.
When we look at a painting or hear a song, how do we know that it is a different view or sound? It is the edges, my brother, celebrate the edges in life. Devoid of edges, all this would be one big, empty, canvas. A fancy car, pretty girl, handsome man, or dandelion, is all just a blank sheet of paper, without edges. I know; I don't want to live in "the flat lands".
Friends, Minnesotans, countrymen, lend me not your ears, for ears are fleeting. Lend me your eyes, because as sure as I can write this, 30 years from now, you can read this. There are fantastical developments, both already here, and in the near future, for the blind/low-vision, so yes, they too will be able to read it. That is, if it survives. This is a crazy time that we live in.
One can't help but see similarities, between our time and that of Winston Smith, the lead character in George Orwell's, fantasy viewpoint in "1984." Some say that the internet, with its cameras, and microphones, is much like Orwell's vision of the "Telescreen." "For it was with the invention of the devices that not only received video and sound but sent it, that private life ceased to exist." The major difference between "Internet Reality" and Orwell's "Telescreen," being that we can turn the computer/web-TV/what have you off.
No one, I say again, no one is forced to do anything they don't want to do with the internet. I understand the current trend towards doomsayers. This doesn't mean that it's correct. Look at it this way, friends, the earth and society have kept on churning in the face of more than one, great mêlée. We have no "REAL" reason to believe that it should end anytime soon. I'm secure in the thought that "I have lived." I hope you can all say the same.
There you have it, my view on things, both
great and small. I leave you with this sentence: Long live humanity
and long live the differences, grab life by its edges and don't
let go!!!!
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