Adonis Diaries

Son of Man: Margin for Freedom (February 25, 2009)

            Heredity defines to great extent every individual.  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. 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 a little by nature, environment, social conditions, and personal limited 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 owner 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 to 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 of suffering and humiliation.

We have always attributed to God all the good values, even the immoral values in our daily realities, and attributed to God, we have tried hard to interpret then 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.  That is the 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.  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.