The Journey of Life

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music
Would you hold it near as it were your own?

It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air

There could be no more fitting introduction to this diary than Robert Hunter's words.

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

Reach out your hand if your cup be empty
If your cup is full may it be again
Let it be known there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of men

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

You who choose to lead must follow
But if you fall you fall alone
If you should stand then who's to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home

Grateful Dead, Ripple
American Beauty, 1971

There is such wisdom in those words. But more importantly, there is inspiration. Let there be songs to fill the air; let there be words of beauty and courage and hope, of sadness and fear and loneliness. Let each of us add our own voice, for nobody else can walk the path of our life.

We live in a world where advice is everywhere. Every newspaper and magazine has advice columns to direct us in our personal lives; our bookstores are crowded with self-help books; the media directs our politics; advertising tells us what to eat, what to wear, what to buy. For any decision that I could possibly face, there are at least a dozen printed sources telling me what I should choose.

There are those who would have us believe that we are actually helpless to make our own choices, that the forces of our environment control us. They would excuse acts of evil - the soldiers who tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the Hamas members who blow up cafeterias, the brown shirts who followed Hitler - as products of their society, victims in some way of their leaders. And they would diminish the impact of good acts - of the Vietnam War protesters, for instance - by saying that they were products of their time, that they were driven to act by forces outside their control like draft cards. They would forget all the women and the non-citizens and the college students with deferrals who still demonstrated.

There are even studies to show that we are submissive to authority, that we will commit acts of evil if we are pressured to. Statistically, most people will. But I am not a statistic. And neither are you.

Each one of us - every citizen of this world - has the freedom to make choices in our lives. And each of us, individually, has to live with those choices. We cannot look to others to lead us; we must lead ourselves. We must lead our fellow citizens. We must lead our leaders. And we must tell them that we hold them individually, personally responsible, as we do ourselves, for their actions, for their votes.

We must also look to our own lives, our personal actions. What will you do to set things right? Each of us shares a piece of the responsibility for the global injustices being perpetrated by those who purport to represent us. What will you do to stop it? I'm asking myself that question every day. What am I willing to give up to do the right thing? And what is the right thing, anyway?

My road through life has been a rocky one, full of pitfalls, twists and turns. But I take comfort in the fact that I control my future. I am free because my mind is free. Nobody can take that from me.