Who I Am

What is the measure of a man?

Am I the sum of my inputs? Or the summary of my output?

Is it my heart that defines me? Or my mouth?

I reluctantly agree with Paul that "what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."1 And with James that "the tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body."2 And with the writers of ancient wisdom:

"There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.3
Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.4
The poison of vipers is on their lips.
Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.6
Their feet are swift to shed blood;
and the way of peace they do not know.7
There is no fear of God before their eyes."8, 9

And yet I hope.

I am twisted and broken and grasping and yet I hope.

Who am I that I carry within myself this contradiction, the knowledge of our complete failure buoyed by a perfect hope?

Hope is a decision. Much like Love is a choice. I choose to hope.

I want to see a tomorrow that is brighter than today. And yet every living person is a fountain of selfishness and evil, and I am the worst. There is no rational basis for expecting a brighter future. So I have nothing to hold on to except hope. It is a rational choice to believe in the irrational.

Without hope there would be no point in taking another breath. And so with every breath I hope.

I am not hoping for Divine intervention. I am not hoping for a miraculous perfection of the human spirit. I am hoping for a social and economic system organized such that it is in each person's best interest to behave himself. That is all I can hope for.

I see the world that we have. And I see that we very nearly have the power to design our own society as we see fit. I hope that we have the communal wisdom to distrust ourselves and build a society based on justice.

I am the very personification of hope for justice.

-Aristides



1 Romans 7:15
2 James 3:6
3 Psalms 14:1-3; 53:1-3; Ecclesiastes 7:20
4 Psalm 5:9
5 Psalm 140:3
6 Psalm 10:7
7 Isaiah 59:7-8
8 Psalm 36:1
9 Romans 3: 10-18