The Sweet Innocence of Corruption

Bedeviling the Self

Perseus pursued the gorgon … and slew the demon … by  focusing on its reflection. In doing so he would have freed the demon … from a fate worse than death. In turn … the man may have been consumed by his own loss … of his favorite dreams. But he went into it … like a mission … whose final act … destroyed the old … and ploughed the ground anew for its regeneration.

 

In reflecting on that … we are reminded of the moments when … crossing the line … between sweet innocence … and corruption … felt like a daze in a dream … in which we reached for that lethal potion … as if we would not be harmed by it. Perhaps we thought we would be spared the usual admonishment … for the virtue that we have accumulated.

 

A man seeks to protect the budding love in his gal … so that she will not succumb to its corruptive influences … in the open society in which we live. The gal … in turn … is seized by the faith of love … its redeeming qualities … that makes all her wrongs seem right. Perhaps she believes after that … that its gone away … vanished from the thorny clutches of her youth … and enables her to rise like a born again martyr … to the cause of love.

 

Eve … in the garden of Eden … was tempted by the serpent of cycles … that revolve constantly around the seasons of our lives. It makes us think that … corruption is inevitable … and is inherent in all we do … woven with the good … in the twin pillars of heaven and hell. In trying to be good … we create the avoidance of that which is bad … and in the life that we thereafter engender … it weaves a personality of self-assurance in goodness … that is as incessant as waves on the beach.

 

When we stop … the relief of being spared the constant struggle … washes over us … like a fresh new look at life … and we walk into the halls of Hades … as a willing servant. Such experiences … and the report of them … have been plenty … as we move away from the tutorship of faith … that has been the practice since the last century. Today … a young man growing up … sees the deplorable naivety of the good … and makes that token attempt of resistance … before engaging in what he considers … are the fashion of the times.

 

William Blake's … ' The marriage of heaven and hell ' … at the turn of the 18th century … set the theme … for the life unfolding in these times. It pointed to a virtual metamorphosis … of the human spirit to find itself again … with its face to the sun … in the experience of the normal and virtuous. It was the new world … grown from the roots of the old … and hoping to spread its branches skyward to the light. If we failed … its because … we thought faith contained a knowledge … that we hoped would prove itself.

 

In waking into a new dawn … we review the words of the scriptures … and wonder again at the nature of the chaos … that existed before time. It was a period in which … there was no heaven … no light … and the universe was in gloom. In the word of the good book …  the lord declared … ' Let there be light … and there was light.' And in the life … when we viewed the fall of Samson … the madness of the mighty Herakles … and the weak heel of Achilles … we realize where that first light came from … now gone with the heroes.

 

And in their place … in the human society … the layman today is asked to repeat the success of heroes gone before … not as heroes … but as men of conscience … living by the law … and subscribing to the values of society. We find ourselves re-examining the basic principles that support life … and bring ourselves to volitionaly accept … such principles … in the light of our experience … and understanding.

 

In doing so … we find like Perseus did … the many pronged heads of desire rising from us … that seeks to find its fulfillment in the gargantuan appetite for wealth … security … and comfort … when our simple common sense … makes it clear … that its more than what we need. Its the age of the great middle class … with the basic comforts of home … and a fulfillment of satisfaction in family … and self awareness.

 

Even the marathons we enter to compete … have a start and finish … to their competitiveness … measured in a performance over distance … time … and position of achievement. Such measures are invaluable for our appreciation of the comforts we already enjoy in our lives … in the standards of averages … otherwise we find ourselves back at the beginning of time … where no such standards were possible … and gave rise to chaos.

 

In taking the attitude of sweet innocence … that we are not responsible for the chaos of our early beginnings … ignores the basic understanding … that life began with simple organisms … seeking to grow at random … in the convenience of the path of least resistance. It was a time of the wilds … when a nesting eagle would … toss a weaker baby from the cliffs … so that the stronger sibling would survive.

 

As we grow into a society … our human values rise to define ourselves anew … by the compassion and love that civilization has engendered. We have to rehabilitate the past … with a new will for man to relate to. As a society we no longer condone cruelty … or self avarice … that ignores the basic rules of social manners and decorum. In doing so … it might weaken our past might … but founds a new strength … in the redeeming qualities of love and understanding. Its a new world indeed and a new man.