03:31 Sep 11 2006
Times Read: 685
May I set the stage? I shall impersonate a man. His name... Alonso Quijana... a country gentleman, no longer young. Being retired, he has much time for books. He studies them from morn till night and often through the night till morn again, And what he reads oppresses him, fills him with indignation at man's murderous ways toward man. He ponders the problem, how to make better a world where evil brings profit and virtue none at all. Where fraud, deceit and malice, mingle with truth and sincerety. He broods and broods and broods and broods and finally, his brains dry up. He lays down the meloncholy burden of sanity and conceives the strangest project ever imagined, to become a knight-errant and sally forth to roam the world in search of adventure. To right all wrongs. To mount the crusades. To raise up the weak and those in need. He must raise his neighbor, one Sancho Panza, a country laborer and honest man, if the poor may be called honest for he was poor indeed, to become his squire. He chooses and ancient carthorse called Rosenante, to become his steed in the safeguard of his master's will. These preparations made, he siezes his lance, no longer to be called Alonso Quijana...
but a dauntless knight known as -
Don Quixote de La Mancha!
Thus begins the tale of Cervantes mad knight. And what a tale it is. Filled with giants and sorcerers and right over evil. So the giants were windmills and the sorcerer became his niece's fiance, but he was proud and happy to do his work. Ultimately he was defeated. Not by magic, not by any great beast, not the sword or flame. But by reality. Forced back to the real world from his mad world in which he thrived he began to shrivel and fade.
I was like that. I was the mad knight who joined the forces to fight the evil. To right all wrongs. To mount crusades. To raise up the weak and those in need. I wanted to create a better world. But I was defeated by reality. This leads to another quote, this from Cervantes:
"Life as it is. I've lived for over forty years, and I've seen life as it is. Pain! Misery! Cruelty beyond belief! I've heard all the voices of God's noblest creatures: moans of pain from bundles of filth in the street. I've been a soldier--and a slave. I've seen my comrades fall in battle, or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I've held them at their last moments; These were men who saw life as it is. But they died despairing! No Glory! No Brave Last Words! Only their eyes filled with confusion, questioning: 'WHY?' I do not think they were questioning why they were dying, but why they had ever lived?
And life, itself seems lunatic! Who knows where madness lies?! Perhaps to be too practical is madness! To surrender dreams, this may be madness! To seek treasure where there is only trash! Too much sanity may be madness! But maddest of all is to see life as it is, and not as how it should be!"
And how true it is. I've seen comrades fall. I've held them as they died. I found that the only people who wanted change were those crushed beneath the wheels of those in power. And I don't just mean governments. Companies, corporations, those who gain power both legally and illegally. And I came to find out that not all was so clear cut. Things weren't black and white like in the fantasy I once lived within or within the mind of Cervantes mad knight. Most things, in fact, are varying shades of grey when it comes to right and wrong. And to confuse things even more people will do 'wrong' things for good reasons or 'right' things for personal gain. As it says in the lyrics of a song:
"Well everything I've come to know, seems so confusing. It's gettin hard to tell, what's wrong from right. I can't seperate the winners from the losers anymore. And I'm thinking of just giving up the fight."
I'm tired. Why should I fight battles that no one cares about? Why fight battles that win or lose, I lose? Why am I alone when all I ever wanted was someone to love and to hold, to care for and about? Is it enough to stand up for what's right? Isn't there more than returning to a dark room, alone, and hoping that you made the right decisions? Especially when you know that what is right is sometimes different from what's necessary?
My mother chose to let cancer take her because she was tired of fighting. Three years of chemo and sickness. My family wanted her to hold on and I stood beside her, supporting her decision. And for my belief that I was doing the right thing I lost my mother and earned my family's anger. I feel that I did the right thing and yet now I feel alone. Isolated.
"They say there is nothing worse than being all alone in the dark. But there is. Being all alone in a crowded room."
How true. And how many times have I sacrificed what I wanted for what I believed was right? And how painful it is.
I'm tired. I want to be left alone in shadows and yet I want to feel the warmth of a loving embrace. Yet it seems that this is denied me. Suicide is not an option. It is against the code that I live by. And that code is all I have left that's mine, and all I have that I can embrace, it seems. But I so desperately want to rest.
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