It is not truth that I seek. For truth is futile, and its power is held moment by moment, but with time will become worth little. There's no victory that last the test of time, and no loss felt beyond the bounds of time. It's been said that the world does not change, but rather those holding onto what has been die.
While we inhabit the home of others we must conform to the laws of its residence. This does not make them just. A bird born without the ability to fly will fall to its death. This form of justice is born out of an understanding I do not have, but nonetheless are the rules of its home. Thousands of years, and many ancestors with the pure purpose of overcoming gravity only to have a simple failure render all that knowledge useless to the individual. It's surely the home of something grander that we inhabit.
I am half stricken to speak about the bird in a way that describes the laws of nature. How easily we run toward an answer that provides us a moment of clarity. The clarity of an answer from the past falls over us. I reject this notion. Perhaps we are a product of god, but still we are of the laws of nature as much as any bird. We do not accept the same laws for ourselves, and better yet spending countless resources on overcoming such a notion. While so much clarity can be found in the dismissive through words it gives us no real truth.
Reflections
Truth is futile. Its power exists moment by moment, but time erodes all victories and all losses. The world doesn't change - those holding onto what was simply die. What does it mean to seek something that won't last?
Consider the bird born without the ability to fly. Thousands of years of evolution, countless ancestors adapting to overcome gravity - all rendered useless by a single failure in one individual. The rules of its home demand flight. The bird falls. Is this justice? Or just the operation of laws we don't understand but must live within?
We inhabit the home of others - or something larger than ourselves. We must conform to laws we didn't write and don't fully understand. This doesn't make them just. But it makes them real.
Here's where it gets interesting: How easily we invoke "laws of nature" to explain the bird's fate. That explanation provides clarity, comfort even. But then we reject those same laws for ourselves. We spend countless resources overcoming what seems natural - death, disease, limitation. We're of the laws of nature as much as any bird, yet we don't accept them the same way.
Is that hubris? Or is our resistance to natural law itself natural? If we're products of the same system that produced the bird, then our drive to overcome limitation is just as "natural" as the bird's inability to fly.
The dismissive clarity we find in words - "it's the laws of nature" - gives us no real truth. It just gives us permission to stop asking questions.