Monday, November 26, 2018

A Kind Of World In Which To Live

Some believe in the divine nature of men, yet cannot conceive of any world except one in which everyone is bristling with as many instrumentalities of death as our means allow. However, by grasping unrestrained for evermore security, it always seems to more assiduously elude us.

That is not to infer that somehow the absence of arms will pacify our psychopaths and criminals. It won’t. We must be prepared, but there is a balance we must strike.

The benefit of living in as disarmed a community as our natures will allow is not so that we live in ignorance, and at the mercy of the wolves who are ever present at our doors. The benefit lies with the humble understanding that even the best of us (hit with moments of heightened stress, extreme need, or justifiable anger), as well as even the meekest of us (beleaguered by illness, age, and ill treatment) are more able to live up to our better natures with our hands at some distance from the triggers of death, and with our minds enlightened by environments that mirror the aspirations of our hearts. 

While I require a world that has its armies and police forces, I do not want to live in a world in which an extension of everyone's road rage, fear, anger, and paranoia is a loaded assault rifle within their whitened grips.

Loren M. Lambert © December 22, 2012

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