I do not believe in God, for God exists only in the hearts of the faithful. I am not faithful. I do not care for religion but to teach others that tolerance is better than discrimination and I know without such a thing, life would be more unbearable than it already is. For there are countless wars, external and internal, on a grand scale and some mere skirmishes, that nonetheless extinguish lives more swifter than a cobra can strike. The soldiers on both sides cause starvation among the rural peoples, play ethnic divisions against one another, systematically rape and torture certain members of a community in order to weaken the people’s resolve--all in the name of what they believe ‘is the right thing’. Yet, neither side truly has that particular right because to give that right to anyone would be to make them a Human God or worse than that, someone who has come to think that his way is the only way.  And one who thinks in that fashion cannot be trusted with the fate of a country, an army of men unwillingly drafted or not-quite-so stupidly volunteered to fight, much less with the fate of an entire race in one’s hands. That would be the first step to the feared apocalypse prophesied of biblical times and the last time for which any would be able to breathe in complete freedom.

Then there are the problems within one’s own motherland or resident country that troubles a person daily in one’s search for peace, never knowing what exactly that entails or means until it has been found. Through affection do people find it in themselves to adapt to another for companionship, lust, and silence of the soul. Through dislike will one see the ugliness hidden within custom and the horrors of tradition, through it shall one find release from that which are useless in life yet somehow deemed important restraints, through it do one side with the demons and not against them. Through wretchedness does one hear the cries of spite, taste true defeat, through it one cannot blame others for one’s own flaws and is able to realize the strength of those whose lips are forever sealed in broken promises. Through agony can the lunar rays embrace one’s mind in camaraderie and under the unspoken pledge of safety from her sentinel, false words of tenderness whispered into one’s mute ears; Through it shall one understand the previously insane thoughts of that man on the broken down street of poverty shouting exclamations of damnation, claiming the world’s end has already come, demanding that one give up the material and look to the light before the light cannot be seen thereafter.

But the world is not at an end, no, it is merely in the process of destroying the killers of her flesh and blood. She desires the sharp-eyed ones, the humans, to comprehend that wanton destruction of her body will not go without consequence. Balance must be soon achieved if the humans wish to survive more than a century, for Mother Nature, her ally, will not stand to watch her sister perish. What sister would watch their own wither away for the stupidity and arrogance of her children, no matter that sister’s grievances or extravagancies?

Blood will not be denied.

The call of kin cannot be overwhelmed by duty, propriety or self-gain, not if one is with heart tainted only by so-called humanity. To do so would be to turn upon oneself, for family is within the mind constantly though one defiantly tries not to, like an insistent child commanding one’s answers to all its annoying questions and without leaves one bare of any cares outside of oneself, a potential candidate of reckless mistakes at the cost of other’s dignity or worse. But family cannot hold one to this world, enforce its rules on one forever as that will be going against the natural liberties humans were born with, knowingly or not at first. The bonds of family are only strong for as long as trust, care, a desire to protect and an offer to understand underlies those bonds with resolution. And perhaps, for someone to accept one’s apologies…

The bonds of blood, however, pale sometimes in comparison to bonds of friendship and empathy. Courtesy out of relation will only get one so far before that façade is shattered into fairy dust. An imaginary confidant who is exposed as merely a spy in the game of boredom. Many cannot ascertain to which they will choose, if faced with family or friends and in desperation may opt to choose neither or choose one and lose the other. For others, the choice is all too easy and the beginning of a new life comes with a vengeance., a snap of something surreal yet more real than anything they have ever experienced and is grateful for the impasse they had arrived at. For some, they cannot say because they have never known either and ultimately choose to walk the path with the only one they do know--theirselves.  I, too, cannot say clearly who or what I would choose if faced with the same predicament or blessing in disguise. I am not yet sure, for I am but a child straining to bear witness to history and understand what it all means specifically in regard to me.

I will, in spite of this, say what I do know: My sister is yet young and losing sight of the reality around her, my brother is full of hauteur and forgetting the significant in the course of indulgence, my father not quite in old age but revealing the facts of time and is indifferent or agreeable with such, my mother holds in high regard society’s integrity and cares not for foolish tantrums that have naught to do with the future at stake and I…I will do as I always have and probably will for the rest of my life waiting, watching, searching for the reason why I stay by their side. This is my truth and nothing more.