Through the ages we have survived and dragged our way to the top of the chain of creation, mastering evolution and to some extent freeing ourselves from its rules and boundaries. But what is it that makes us to stand apart from the other denizens of our planet? Disregarding the improvable religious view on the soul, isn’t it our power to reason that makes us special? If so, can we all claim that we make use of this gift in order to stand in our rightful place in the cycle of life?

Throughout the history, humans have shown a great tendency to mass together to form communities and societies. While the choice has many merits like security and a higher chance of survival, it also represents certain disadvantages. To form a successful society people have to mass together and form an entity which can be looked at as a giant copy of a person; with people for arm, legs, head and other parts of the body. Thus giving truth to the saying that “the one with the larger weapon wins”. Yet forming this giant beast needs sacrifice.

People should specialize; meaning they should grow certain skills and ignore the rest in order for the machine to work properly. Consequently, the thinking and decision making would be left to the head (i.e. the father, king or a group of elites). This way the body would remain united and would not fall apart or stand indecisive in the middle of an action. A good example might be in wartime when the democratic Romans with the senate in charge would assign most of their power to the Caesar, even more specializing the head; or the president of the United States finding himself with more freedom in decision-making in his office. But are the merits worth the price?

Every group is made up of individuals. The smaller a group, normally, the more similar are the members’ interests and their individuality is more expressed. The bigger the groups become, the more general would be the unifying factor and the less the value of a single unit. In a perfect group the general direction of their movement is based on the wishes and interests of the majority; with every step, the majority gets closer to its goal over the seemingly acceptable price of sacrificing those of the minority. Although this might seem logical in the first glance, if the sacrifices were counted in the scale of a thousand steps, the result would be astronomical. The price of progress, in spite of being logically affordable, is morally too expensive as many individual characteristics and wishes are destroyed under the wheels of this machine. Furthermore let’s not forget the fact that every decision is made by the head and while in a utopian world this equals the wishes and needs of the body, in the real world it can range from the understanding of the head of what is good for the rest of the body at best to the head’s outright autonomy and following its own paradigms at worst.

Thus more and more people lose their individuality to the benefits of unity and become what can be referred to as followers or the mob. It is in this way that humanity and its inherent qualities are sucked out of our lives and a bestial attitude is poured into the ensuing vacuum. Only a few remain with an individual spark putting their seal on every moment of their lives. These are also, little by little, whether crushed under the weight of their generation or recruited into the minority of the elite holding the leash.

Lord Dariuss

She has wings,
But no will to fly.
She knows things,
But no courage to apply.
She’s kept in a cage,
For her own sake.
Her world is an image,
Which she doesn’t care if a fake.
The bars of her prison,
Are blades facing outward.
But she can’t find the reason,
To dismantle her ward.

They say a bird is delicate and fragile,
That’s why she must be protected for a while.
I say a bird is free and wild,
That’s our nature to tame and bind.

Lord Dariuss

At a point in human history there seems to have risen the idea that the root of many problems lies in humans’ excess in seeking of pleasure. Thus were many modern theories shaped and thus we sealed our doom.

It all started as an innocent idea, an idea like many others. People had observed that excess in drinking might result in a gradual death or different acts of violence. They thought hard and found the roots of many crimes in the relations of men and women; adultery, rape and even war on occasions. Societies grew from family into tribes, villages and even crimes, and with them grew the hardships, crime rate and frailty of old laws and boundaries. Naturally when the religions came (as the arch-law) these issues were on top of their list. They came one after another, prohibiting this and that. They started as good solutions to the vices and shortcomings of their time. Yet they found a precedent and later a law socially implanted into every child’s flesh and bone: pleasure leads to ruination in shame and guilt. Then came the clergy with cement and bricks in hand to build the house of God with roots deep into the fears of men. People saw the flames of hatred, fed on their own darkness, and mistook it for salvation. Drinking alcohol was banned; interactions between men and women were reduced to minimum, generally by limiting the freedom of the tender gender. Touch became a crime, kiss a myth and love a taboo. Anything pleasurable was viewed with skepticism at best.

From families to nations have been trapped in this tide, fleeing in disgust from the extremes of religious fanaticism into the embrace of nude naturalism. Running from extreme always with a revitalized force.

As a result, there are nations in which a boy and a girl walking together is considered a heavier crime than thievery and their touch worse than the fires which burn a whole family. People who look at a knife as a tool with the potential of both good and evil but at a human as a mindless instrument of sin who needs to be guided at best and purified by fire at worst.

Estranged people from their nature and their past walk the streets. They look at each other and see only evil fueled by their ignorance. A man and woman’s definition of each other is a collection of must-nots and hearsay. Those who enjoy an activity, always entertain a sense of guilt, caused by the possibility of sin, at the back of their minds. No pleasure is untainted, no joy remains untarnished.

We seem to go in a circle which only grows in its extremity. Breaking out of the cycle seems our only option if we are to survive in our evolution.

Lord Dariuss