The Souls of Folks Stomping on Thin Ice

I love you, more than any other, because I am you, selfishly so, in love with my reflection, Narcissus inviolate.

I love you like no other because we are one.

Because I love you, I bear you up when you are weak and you hold my weight when illness takes its toll.

I did not see the poll tax, feel the overseer's whip, drink from separate fountains or get an equal education. The veil that others lift between us is not my own.

Instead...

Instead, I am you. Thus, we are both the hunter and the hunted. The target and the invisible. Bamboozled while doing the right thing.

We rejoice in the moment, letting history pass us by. We are not them, those who went before us.

And yet...

And yet, here we are, wearing clothes, using language, designing new tools, caught in the web of social intercourse, all because of who we were.

An oppressed people does not define the individual. An individual has to choose to associate with oppression.

We pave the way for those who come after so every moment we live now is only the past that others will look back on in envy of a golden era.

That's right. We're the chosen ones, the Golden Children, the leaders for another time.

No longer is civil disobedience enough. Society belongs to all of us, responsibility the key to unlocking real freedom. The marketplace is yours. Let us seek not to let political movements sweep us up. Take the reins in your hand and own the means of production. Invest, don't spend. Plan, don't react.

We belong to each other. Your pressing need is my growth opportunity, neither one of us out of control of the situation, two kids on a see-saw, three kids skipping rope, double-dutch style, dancing by the river under the trees on a hot, summer day.

We are Atlas. We are Sisyphus. We are Chen Jinggu. We are Lakshmi. Our generation is already crumbling into ashes and dust, momentarily crashing on the shore, defining the line between land and water, one reflecting upon the other, separate but equal, the same to all who exist after us.

Change is. I am you is us. We hold each, arm-in-arm, changing imperceptibly. We numb the pain when we cling to one another during the storms of change, every moment a miracle, a joy to behold.

Our moment in the sun colors our view because our eyes make our visions visual. Don't be fooled by what you see. The layers we wear fade away like our hearing, teaching us to be weary with age-old wisdom.

Strength is not what you do to others but what you do for them. Act wisely. What you do with what you have makes you me to those who don't know better.

I am you. I have been you all along, scraping my knees and crawling up mountains, the view from the top just one more day away. And after that? Another mountain to climb, another planet to explore, one more hope for those we'll never know but who think they know us. They are us, today, tomorrow and two thousand years from now. Now you know why nothing keeps us apart. In the future, we are all the same.