History admits no rules, only outcomes.

What precipitates outcome? vicious acts and virtuous acts.

What precipitates acts? Belief.

Belief is both prize and battle field, both beautiful and frightening, and above all, absolutely vital, within the mind, and in the mind's mirror, the world.

If we believe humanity is a Colosseum of confrontation, exploitation and brutality, such a humanity is surely brought into being. You and I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it, if our consciences itch? Why undermine the dominance of our race, our heritage, and our legacy? Why fight the natural order of things?

Why? Because of this-
One fine day, a purely predatory world, shall consume itself. How far can greed, selfishness and the crave for power be taken? In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.

If we believe that humanity may transcend truth and claw; if we believe diverse races and creeds can share this world peaceably; if we believe leaders must be just, violence curbed, power accountable and the riches of the Earth and its oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass.

I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Tortuous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword.

A life spent shaping a world I want my children to inherit, not one I fear my children shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth living.

You might think your life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean.
Yet, what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?



-excerpts taken from 'Cloud Atlas'

In conversation

The moon, she raised her face, but that cold lady didn't say anything, she didn't have to.
As that young girl sat there in silent conversation with the lady who saw everything from a distance, who was an epitome of beauty, in front of whom, people big and small. lay down their deepest feelings, she thought aloud.
Was everyone really as alive as she was? Was everyone capable of feeling the desire and pain she did? If the answer was yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices, and each one's thoughts striving in equal importance, and everyone's claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no one was. One could drown in irrelevance. How important was she really? What set her apart?
The moon looked on, holding answers that she couldn't quite reach. Stones that she carried around, had weighed her down for too long.
From up there, everything looked clear, and true. The butterfly effect that each little thought set off, was so immense, acting as the epicenter of a huge wave, Each little blob of consciousness reflected a different color, mixing and mingling with others to form endless combination's, all the while retaining its real self. It was an ever changing, ever renewing world, that despite everything, remained the same. A distant viewer could never get bored, because it was like trying to comprehend an unsolvable mystery.
Or so the young girl thought. For what it was like from up there too, remained a mystery.
That night, she had been holding a hope for a change in the tide, for what, she did not know. Staring at the white circle for too long, had made her see strange illusions, or so she thought they were. Because it was almost like the lady had winked at her.
She walked away thinking it was the best conversation she had ever had.
Her dented conscience fixed, her troubled mind soothed, she fell into a deep slumber, smiling in her dream.
The lady, as always, had awakened the dream child in her. An so, she dreamed as days went by, and talked to her distant companion as the summer nights died. She lingered in th golden gleam-
Life-what is it, but a dream?