When will your moment come?

The inspiration for the title of this page is a rather odd one. It's one of those things we think up in the middle of the night, when the restless mind refuses to submit to sleep. I think it was a few months back, after June Common Test, when I laid in bed staring at the ceiling. I had just finished reading "A Company of Heroes", the exploits of Mike Durant during his capture in Somalia in 1993, after the operation to capture Aidid's top lieutenants went horribly wrong. I think it would be easier for most to remember it as "Black Hawk Down", the book and the movie which tried to capture the essence of that day in history. Two names stay with me after personally reading the book and watching the movie (I was watching the NC-16 film while I was 15). Their names stick because of the actions which they undertook to save the lives of their comrades, that of the crew of Super-64. Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon, I have the greatest respect for both of you.

The title came to me, because as my sleep-deprived mind wondered that night, I came to a sudden realization that perhaps all of us have that one moment when a choice had to be made, the definitive point in our life, where all previous actions and deeds pale in comparison to what we had to do next.(maybe the caffeine I had a few hours before sleeping was getting to me) It was the moment when nothing we did before ever mattered, rather, it was our next step which meant everything. Heroes I guess, are made in that moment, when that one choice would define you, where either you simply choose the highway to obscurity, or your own way to live on in eternal memory. Therefore, a moment for eternity.

Perhaps it may be a bit too simplistic to think that one deed would serve to validate our personal existence, but being the idealist I do think we each have our own personal choices which would affect people around us, and how we go about resolving our issues show who we are. Though the choices matter, I guess the experience is still the most important. I do hope that when my moment for eternity comes, I choose my way.

Choice. Today's General Paper comprehension passages delved into it, whether too much choices in modern day life is a bane or a blessing. My personal view is that though life is not our choice to make, how we live it is and always has been our own choice. Having only the contemporary worldview, it may be an over-generalisation on my part, that my ancestors had as much choice as I do, but it is my view that the fundamental choices in life exist now as they have before. Perhaps education is the key, that with more knowledge come more complex decisions. Therefore is ignorance bliss? Less choice better? An endless path we tread on now, and I choose to stop.

America has made its choice, and it is George Bush for another 4 years. I only hope he sticks to his word, unlike 4 years earlier, when he said he will be a unifier. The world and America has become more divided, even polarised, since he took office. I only hope we do not descend into chaos because of irreconciliable differences, and truly hope that we can rise above to find common ground and seek understanding rather than war. Then we can concentrate on digging Osama's ass out of the hole he crawled into, and send him on his way to Paradise.

Ideals don't come cheap, if we want peace, then we must prepare to combat those who threaten it. I've always been of the mind that force is necessary because there is such a thing as irrevocable evil, that will not compromise. Pure evil, and we can only protect the ideals we hold dear with M-16 in one hand, the other extended to offer peace if and when we find the source of evil eliminated. Osama is one source, the others are all the radical teachers of fundamentalist, extremist religious and social beliefs. Terrorism may have many tentacles, but an octupus still has a head which a 5.56 round can easily ventilate. The old axiom, that old men talk while young men die, still holds true. Take out the old trash-talkers like Osama and Bashir, and young men would have a chance to live again, to utilise their lives in service of peace and all mankind.

Off the deep end again, I have a tendency to ramble into the totally incoherent. Again, I provide salvation in quotation marks, a quote from John Stuart Mill.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is worth war, is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

Sincerely,
Don