A Different Perspective

Much has been said on the subject of duty and honour, on love for your fellow man and admirable sacrifice. Much has been said, much has been written, but these rarest of human characteristics and, for want of a better word, ‘illusions’, always deserve another word or two.

Question me on why I would associate the word ‘illusion’ with these subjects. For they are illusions, in every sense of the word, manifested by the deepest, most empathetic recesses of the human mind in an effort to grant at least some degree of perspective toward the amazing deeds we as human beings have been performing since time immemorial. Perspective, to our minds, is everything. It is the foundation of sanity, itself an illusion of such innate complexity that to ponder on its inner workings is to subject oneself to constant mental turmoil and distress.

So, such ponderings aside, I will skim the surface of this mosh pit of human emotion and unyielding sophistication to say a few words on duty and honour, of love for your fellow man, and admirable sacrifice.

Pain and loss can make or break a man. We are creatures of fickle emotion and ailing hearts, dependent on each other to great extents. We are great and small, strong and weak, and afflicted with all the humbling qualities of sentience. Duty and Honour? It is the bread and butter of the incorruptible man, and if such men were to exist in abundance in this time and age, the ripple effect of such steadfast dedication toward one’s responsibilities would be immeasurable indeed. But no, we are selfish creatures, with that innate, hardwired desire to find in ourselves something worthy of preservation, and protect it at all costs, the rest of the world be damned. And I ask you, whoever said this was a bad thing? What can be defined as ‘bad’? Are the archaic moral and ethical codes set down by humanity so rigid that they define one’s desire to protect oneself as ‘bad’? Yes, they are; and then what? Do we keep fingering the same side of that wretched coin, slowly eroding away its surface, or do we flip and see if some degree of love for your fellow man and admirable sacrifice make any sense? Would not such actions be self-preserving as well, considering the fact that by living right by your neighbor, you will be doing yourself a service as well? But such a belief would require a man to have certain proclivities, such as faith in God, or Buddha, or in some sort of higher power that surpasses our paltry understanding of the complications of human society.

So what would love for you fellow man and admirable sacrifice entail in such a world of bizarre moral codes and undefined laws, where chaos is often the order of the day and the wellbeing of another is the last thing on a person’s mind? A one word summation of love and sacrifice, in such a world, although unjustified in being used, would have to do for now: Compromise. We do what we can, as men, as women, as people of free countries and dictatorships, abusive families and loving relationships, in order to keep up the illusions we have created for ourselves long ago. We do what we can, and strive to do what we can’t, because nothing, and absolutely nothing, is as important to man as belonging somewhere on one (or more) of the many hierarchies defining humanity. A waste of space and precious air, man was never, ever meant to be.