Imagine...

A group of people lined up against a wall.  Given a choice:  Test by fire or Test by water. 

By fire you will be burned at the stake.  By water you will be drowned.  If you die, you are innocent.  If you live, you are guilty and will be killed by another method.

You must choose.  If you do not, you will be tested by the manner chosen by the majority of the group.  Since you know this, you have no right or ability to contest the validity of the choice.  That there is no choice "C" of "D".  You cannot even choose hanging or firing squad.  Oh, you could yell those words out, but no one will listen.  And those who think fire is better will fight long and hard to avoid water.  As will those who would rather drown. No, you must choose fire or water.  No choice is still a choice. 

 But imagine this choice!  Even those who opt out and decide they will not participate in such a farce suffer the same consequences as those who try to pick the way they want to die.  No matter how you look at it, the result is the same. 

Only an insane person would participate.  But if you opt out - choose the sane option - you are deemed sane enough to have made the choice to abide by the decision.  If you opt in, you are undoubtedly insane, but no one will stop you. 

Happy Election Day!

I was walking....

I was walking...

down a dirt path one day. It was a simple, dirt path with some grass on either side, and small shrubs a little taller yielding to saplings, and pole timber and trees just a short distance away. I had walked this path many times in search of squirrels, turkey, deer and sometimes just solitude.

On this particular day, I happened to brush into a cobweb stretched across the path. I felt it on my nose and pressed against it – I stopped.

The web pulled, ever so slightly, on the twigs and grass to which it was attached, and the small saplings lightly moved, sending small birds flushing into the air. These small birds excited some nearby squirrels, which began chattering. All the noise attracted and excited crows cawing loudly and a deer jumped further off. All while I stood still, my nose pressed against the web. Still unbroken, but igniting such a stir in the quiet woods where only a moment ago were the quiet sounds of my footsteps and slightly louder sounds of my breathing.

I thought how marvelous it was that such a small thread, such a tiny connection could ignite such a cacophony of sound and caliope of action.

Quietly, carefully, I set down, with the strand of web still attached to my nose while I pondered. I sat still and quiet, thinking. And fell asleep...

As I slept, I dreamed. I dreamed that the web ignited all those consequences, but that those consequences were even more amazing that what I had seen. One of the small birds that flushed had been sick. Weak. The energy it expended in that flush had been its last. And all of its progeny lost to the future. A squirrel had been caught by a fox that locked on the squirrels insistent “bark”. The crows ate because of the misfortune of them both and lived to become more crows.

Even more, I saw the trees themselves bend and bow, drawing like a bowstring on the earth itself. Pulling in on themselves until roads were undermined and supply lines were interrupted. Local arguments over a road mirrored and became regional arguments over resources. Water, wood, fuels. Became national interests with governments, armies, corporations. Lives of people being affected by the rise and fall of powerful entities with no more care for a human life than the bottom line of profit. Children were lost to the loss of life and born to the “winners” of these wars. I saw how this one single web, this one connection, would cause the whole universe to change.

I wondered aloud in my dream if I dared to go forward and break the web. If I were to decide who would live and who would die. Who was I to cause such monumental consequences?

And I woke up.

Still sitting, with the web still attached to my nose.

And as I sat there, a spider slowly crawled across the web, rolled it up and silently slid down a long blade of grass at the side of the path, disappearing forever in the brush.

I stood up and went back the way I came.