I've been skimming the news lately and there seems to be quite a fire raging over the various healthcare proposals looking to make significant changes to our current system and grant access to many more folks across the nation. Actually, not so much the actual proposals, but more uninformed rage over the possibility of significant change and progress.
SO, to uninformed rage and eratic, angered dialogue, I'm sorry, but I'm going to go take a piss and forget about you.
Ok, now I'm back. Feeling a bit lighter after excreting the bile of Coors Light in my bladder, I think I'm ready to turn my thoughts towards a term made popular by a Teddy Roosevelt speech entitled, "The Stenuous Life."
Roosevelt says, among other things in the speech:
"I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph."
Furthermore, so fascinating to me is that this comes out of a Darwinistic belief that death lumes around the turn of any corner of our lives.
Personally, this hits home so to speak. Since, I was little (which was quite little seeing as I'm now only 5'8") I've always had a distinct concept of my own mortality. I remember the first Gulf War. Seeing the news on tv and fearing that I was going to get attacked in my own home by the Iraqies. I was 5.
As absurd as that sounds, this is exactly what 5 year olds in Iraq say. And unfortunately, it is a very real fear. Then and now. This is why "the strenuous life" matters. This is why knowledge is important. This is why every major and minor concept to our lives has to be looked at with a moral and ethical conscience. Not concepts derived solely or primarily from self-interest. Sometimes it isn't easy. But if we don't, we slowly decay. Ourselves and our future inhabitants. Our lives are by happenstance, no matter what you may or may not believe. We're completely random and probably quite lucky when compared to other organisms. It seems to be quite a disservice to the randomness of life, that spawned us which spawned, among other things, Nintendo DS and Ipods, to pollute, pollute, pollute.
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