Hold The Line, Knowing That You May Die
In my life, I have experienced things that not many people get to experience. One of them is the courage to stand firm as the world (your life, family, friends, dreams) appear to fall before your eyes.
Recently, I have known the anxiety that at any minute, doom may fall. True fear, that has set every nerve-ending in my body alight with the screaming impulse to Run! Escape!
I almost did many times, yet there is a greater, vast awareness in my heart that told me to stand firm. To hold the line, knowing that there is every chance we may fall. The moment we begin to run, this choice is a behaviour that can easily turn into habit. The first escape, sets the stage for every future impulse to run, that swiftly feels like safety itself.
But in this world, we cannot run at every cut of the knife. The storm may cause us to stumble, to bend, but we cannot allow ourselves to break — or worse — to flee from the adversity that (more often than not) we have brought upon ourselves. Often by choice, even though we didn’t really understand the repercussions of the choice when we made it.
The Epitome of Responsibility
When we create a masterpiece, we have to expose it to the fire. If your masterpiece is yourself, your character, this cannot be forged without fire. Your creations must be thrown into the inferno of the world, where they will flourish or die — that is their fate. You create them, and then release them into the wind. That is all that you can do. Like children, if you have done your work well, there comes a time when their destiny is outside of your hands.
The greater your dreams, the harder the path, and the more you will be tested. We cannot shy away from those tests. Rumi said:
“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?”
How can we turn away when we know that there are those behind us that we must protect? If you falter, they are in the line of fire. While I have not yet been to war, this principle applies more broadly than it might at first appear. If we are not willing to hold the line as forces in the world erode what we believe is right, true, and just, who suffers?
Children. The next generation, and the one after that. Our dreams. Our future.
We live in a time of war that is approaching the severity of the World Wars of the previous century. But this war is different. It is more abstract. A war of ideas, against corruption and greed, the destruction of the environment, the erosion of morals, and what we understand of civil rights and liberties.
We cannot move through our lives, without eventually finding a hill that we are willing to die on. I believe that this time is coming for us all, and we each must decide where to risk our lives, and where to make our stand. This is the act of taking responsibility for something greater than ourselves, and choosing to lend our power.
Stand Firm, Risk It All
There comes a time in each of our lives, when we must be put to the test. A point of no return, where there is nowhere to run. The path we are on once had many branches, new trails around every corner.
Some of them we explored a little bit. Excited by the novelty and the possibility, feasting our eyes before turning back to our chosen road. But the further we walk along a path, alternate routes evaporate.
Each step towards Mordor collapses potential towards an inevitable confrontation. Each steps towards our dreams, collapses the possibilities into the polarization of success vs failure. It is too late to turn around. We have come too far. Now the goal is in sight, and our backs are against a wall. All that is in front of us is a hellish landscape between us and the whole reason we began walking in the first place.
The final battles of a long war.
This is where we have to stand firm, and risk everything — because there is no choice. There are many times when we can find alternate routes around an obstacle. We can shift our weight, pivot, change how we look at the problem, adjust our perspective, discover creative workarounds. But not every challenge is like this. Sometimes it is succeed or fail, sink or swim, live or die.
For every single one of us, on the myriad of paths available to humans from time immemorial, there comes a time when everything reduces down to a single choice, moment, or risk. There are no options but to move forwards, or retreat.
But to retreat in this moment, is the greatest risk of all, because it nullifies all of the effort it took to get to where we are now. Suffering, striving, struggling, bleeding, crying, sacrificing — for what? Five years? Ten years? Fifteen years? Your whole life to now? — and you are even considering throwing all of that effort away?
Out of fear for what might happen?
No.
That I will not have. I will never allow myself to turn at this moment. I will face judgement. I will face death, imprisonment, failure, and destruction. Every single one of your heroes, fictional or historical, made this same choice. That is why they are heroes to you. So learn from their example, and hold the line when that time comes.
The Line and the World
The world appears divided, but it is not as divided as it appears, and has more than likely been manufactured to look this way. We all want more-or-less the same things. Freedom. Choice. The possibilities to make a life for ourselves. Respite from persecution and suffering. Enough food on the table, and a safe place to live.
We differ on how we believe this should be accomplished. Ideology, Religion, Culture, and Race are the only illusions that makes it appear that we are divided. But in the end, we all want the same thing.
Maybe it will come to pass that the lines we choose to draw oppose us from another. But even then we can recognize the courage inherent in each of us to make that stand. No matter on what hill we decide to risk our lives. Even if they happen to be facing the other.
Find your hill, and your reasons for standing on it, and hold the line, knowing that you may die.