Good character has no race, creed, or color.
Its origin is from within. Its threshold even its beholder can hope to only know for all are tested time and time again.
There is no guarantee that a good family, not even a most influential, financially comfortable, great in every way family, guarantees good character for those coming out. Read some and you will find, as I have been intrigued, to confirm this truth.
When you have seeked the Why? you have found yourself embracing the How? to then, strong-fully get to the What now?
I am a teacher of many race, creed, and color, all in one room, one hour at a time.
I am a parent of five, all ridiculously raised to be strong and yet, more the same, receiving equal force of opposition.
What they don’t see, I see now as if my husband and I can only watch and talk between us during our late evenings or step aways of what we have learned and know now about years (and years) of development.
My husband and I decided to venture to parts of Asia this summer.
This helped to open not just our physical eyes but the eyes of our hearts, minds, bodies, and spirit.
Aside from being another memorable journey, the experience was immensely heartfelt. We were breathing not our familiar air but those who have been breathing theirs for so long.
We could only sink in and let live for the precious moments we were given.
Beyond foods (trust me, we happily ate our feelings between our drives and walks) to cultural findings in person, we were able to dig deep into understanding the people, their ways, and beliefs.
I recall a time, years ago, where my husband was convinced that seeing the world from all aspects and venues of social media was enough for us to understand the world.
I didn’t say much then. Having been born in a different country, I knew that he would soon find out, once he began the journey of trying, as I sensed one country at a time would help him not just see, but feel, touch, smell, hear, and taste, he would understand the inexplicable difference and thus, importance, of actually being part of people’s ways.
While he had a check-off list of things to personally see, I felt my own desire was to essentially listen in on a lot of “clef” notes through the very own tellings of locals.
As I told my husband, listening to others about what they believe and know is like reading chapters in minutes. Those untold stories not meant to be written or ever having made it to print. Priceless.
Like a rumor told, some are very good at convincing you what is quite the plausible truth. Thankfully, having questioned for so long all that I’ve been told and heard since childhood, I have since put pieces of perspectives together to be as near as to what could sensibly be the truth.
I will get to discuss my most recent book I’ve been reading, Nexus, by Yuval Noah Harari, on a future entry, but so far, I will mention my take on information.
Historically, twisting the truth have been used by many who have gained or wanted to sustain power.
There is power and then, there is information.
I think to myself, only in the silent mind can one be truly free. Many have learned to go with the flow of the river. Otherwise, like salmon swimming upstream, not all are destined to make it alive in their desire to go in a different direction.
Opposition has taken the lives of many. Literally but also in heart, mind, and spirit.
Now, whilst we each stand to be uniquely different, creating opposition for oneself doesn’t necessarily suggest one heading or going in the right direction.
Hence, comes the Jiminy Cricket from within. Whether we listen or we don’t suggests the difference between good conscience versus well, following the fox and the cat that, then, lead us to being swallowed by a large fish.
I will go back to the time where the World Wide Web was freed to all. What has it become now? Thankfully, there remains, the growing thread for us to channel through information, as its initial intent. Then, there is that dark web, it’s actual name, in fact.
I recently found that somewhere within that dark web, my personal identity was breeched some years ago.
I am only to arrive that such existence exists due to those who desire for it to exist.
I look for egg nog each upcoming season. It exists because of people like me the same way pumpkin pie has for those such as my dearest husband.
We openly search for those come season to get them.
There is the dark web and then, thankfully, there are those like us, who shamelessly drink or eat in the light our desires.
When my father continued to lay on the couch, having awakened him to confess that I had crossed the street without his permission, I had been confused at the age of ten as to why I had not been punished for my disobedience to stay on the side of my grandmother’s street.
As a parent of five, I know now. You know your children before they know themself.
A young, but determined mother, blessed to stay at home having just graduated with a certification and degree in teaching and psychology, I still remember going into the next room to do a quick talk with God, asking each time if he approved of my parenting (usually after raising my voice to my level of dislike).
Many could beg to differ that I’m not perfect and to all, I would definitely agree. There is a difference in life with no accountability, however.
I’m grown now. I mean, really grown now. I am grateful for the times I corrected myself and have allowed myself some fixings along the way.
I see people at my age or even younger (or, yes, older) and think, they haven’t arrived yet.
That desire for genuinely good character. I mean that true, no lie to yourself, stop trying to convince others you are, and no longer thinking to be with character that isn’t, just to have someone pretend with you arrival.
The moment you stop blaming the world for what you’ve become and why you are who you are and the choices you make, there’s this breath of clarity.
You relax. You breathe. You let go.
Truth was never lost. You just arrived to it. And, upon arrival, goodness is found.
The air is soothing. Your actions are your own. Your consequences, ramifications, and, next steps are (still) your own.
Your character is sound.
I have enjoyed seeing the world and its people. I continue to see differences on the outside, no doubt. We are each the make-up of our environment, after all.
And, yet, deep in the eyes of each, upon my look, no matter the form or shape, I see various arrays of certainty, courage, and calmness.
How a person sees or seeks the world cannot be controlled regardless of what actual images or plays are presented before them. Perspective is within to determine.
I see this more than ever now.
And, so, there is the channel of acquired and thus, believed information.
What information we gain can lead us into power or when given to others, powerlessness.
Hence, one’s direction does not always lean toward either darkness or light. Sometimes, sense of direction is just lost.
Like a child, we hope for a hand to lead us the way. Sometimes, however, the hand we reach out to is just as lost or, treacherously, conniving.
So, here, I find the difference. Even when afraid, at times, clearly fearful of which direction to go, what is within either shines through openly with goodness or hides shamefully or spitefully in the dark.
One meets you with a smile while others look away, seemingly defeated and, thus, controlled, by their own thoughts they perhaps have long succumbed to.
I have seen people laugh and smile with greatest innocence and purity in the embrace of life and you think, they are richest amongst many, priceless joy that cannot be bought.
They still laugh and dance like a child.
Like Sara, my sixth grade classmate who put much needed sense into my understanding when I concerningly asked her if she ever longed for chocolates given that she couldn’t have any (I recall actually thinking of her throughout the school day, saddened for her to miss out on such majestic wonder).
I will never forget the grin on her face with her boy cut hair and metal-framed glasses looking back at me as she slyly responded that you can’t miss what you never had.
Point taken, my friend. To this day, point taken.
That good character of making do with what you know and making best of what you are given.
Purity in happiness. Untainted by what more it could be.
Still, what for those who hold talents to want more?
I have seen these, too.
I know this one because I stand to be one of them. Having lived to not just write but having countless poetry, lyrical songs, and artwork, only to peacefully wonder if they are to be anything more than just habits of the heart, mind, body, and spirit as they quietly have accumulated throughout the years.
I smile upon them all, laughing at times because I cannot even remember when in the world I completed some of them. This, alone, only tells me that they were just a part of me oozing out jewels from within, meant to just build up like King Midas’ gold in a cellar.
There were times I tested to see if the world was ready or wanting of what I still undyingly compose or create. Time and time again, I am given peace to just let me be me.
Yes. Perhaps I didn’t understand Sara because my internal makeup seemed to have always been driven by a force beyond me.
No hunger for evil. No hunger for ill will. No hunger for vengeance from the world for I, even if others around me received allowance and Papa quietly gave me one food stamp dollar seeing my cousins boast about their allowance, I recall thankfully but shamefully taking it for I, even then, felt he owed me nothing.
Talents within are an ache and tremble to want to get out and become actively progressive to the fullest, with or without recognition.
The world has its way to suggest such talents cannot come into fruition in resistance to your own belief. Thus, the cellar.
It is safer, perhaps deemed, safest, to just be and not push to become.
Darkness awaits for those who have attempted to get more, become more, and thus, have to do more to arrive at more.
The stumbles, the falls, the character within being pushed and shoved to being more than its peaceful self.
There is a choice on how to get more; become more. That choice is the driven force on the What? to arrive at more.
Hence, there are those who shine in the light trying, celebrating every moment’s step of victory to be able to just take one more step of the possibilities ahead, careful not to fall into a ditch or pit of darkness, ready to turn back or away if one should be seen before them.
Then, there are those who have fallen into darkness, either choosing to drink the cup of poison to be empowered to do wrong for what seems rightfully theirs or creating havoc for those around who they have been convinced are taking away what they deserve instead.
Yet, which side wins, we already know.
Good character, no matter how much revealed, cannot falter.
One shining mustn’t.
Whatever light it can give, whether a smile or a hand, it continues to give in addition to whatever more is felt to be given in talents, time, and, treasure.
One must.
Darkness has made itself evident, but like Moses with the rod in hand striking upon the Red Sea, darkness parts, runs away, or, is drowned from the instant arrival of light. Always.
Character that is good chooses to remain so.
In purest light, there is no room for darkness. That type of illumination has no color known.
Selah.
