Adonis Diaries

Son of Man

We are told that heredity defines to great extent our individuality.  Every one of us is the product of long lines of successive unions; and yet, the probability of identical persons is nil among the billions upon billions of human kinds that roamed earth. Actually, even a century ago, most of us were the product of “family inbreeding”.  We are told that every person that dies is never replaced and his unique set of characteristics is gone for ever.  Maybe our margin for developing certain characteristics is limited; even then, what could be modified just a little by nature, environment, and social conditions will have an impact in defining future generations.

We have always attributed our reality to act of God, His will, our Destiny; we have been sons of God until recently.  Research and technology is altering many genomes for a healthier man, even before he is born, even when he is a fetus, even by sorting out and selecting one among the many embryos to re-insert in the mother’s uterus.  Man has started to affect genetically future generations.  God is no longer the sole and exclusive breeder of man.

Man is becoming part owner, though with a tiny share so far.  As long as man is not able to tamper with the brain on a large scale, then God will still have the bigger share in man.  When you partially own a person then you are responsible for the whole entity. We tended to let God off the hook for too long.  If man has to be taken to court for wrong doing or designing and manufacturing defective products, then it is about time that God be taken to court after each war, each genocide, each apartheid systems resulting in suffering, indignity, and humiliation.

We have always attributed to God all the good values, even the immoral values in our daily realities; we have tried hard to interpret values and morality in a lenient manner.  If God exists, and he should exist, then God has to be taken to the International Tribunal for crimes against humanity.

We have acquired a slight margin of liberty that we still own: to study, read, reflect, have our own opinions, take hold of our personal responsibilities, and act accordingly.  When a person denies his own share of responsibility and stop reflecting and studying then all he does is but wind or blown in the wind.  I have published many “poems” and I selected two that might be representative for this article.

I Say

I say, every one must have his identity:

Death has forced on us the I.

I say, what exists must be discovered:

Death impressed on us to know.

I say, every feeling must be experienced:

Death created stages for us to grow.

I say, there must be a meaning to life:

Death did not leave us a choice in that.

A Gentle Touch*

Prettier than white dust

You shall never be.

Uglier than a skeleton

You can never be.

Toward the scared souls, scared of death,

Scared in living,

Let your stretched hand

Be gentler, your voice softer.

Quiz: What are the other three titles to this post?