Powerful Beyond Measure [Group 1]
Aug 30, 2013 19:11:42 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 19:11:42 GMT -5
[/color]{Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.}
{Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.}
{It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.}
{We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?}
{Actually, who are you not to be?}
{We are all meant to shine, as children do. }
{And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.}
The fall has always been my favorite season. Sweeping past the heat of the summer, a cooler wind picks up in September. The children make their ways back to school, and a steady hum drifts through the city. Smells of pine and pumpkin spices fill the air, and nights draw dark at an earlier hour. While I am devoted to the long sunsets of summer, with their hues of red and orange, there is something about a crisp fall evening, whose purple night sets in after six o’clock, that prickles my skin. I like to sit on the fire escape of my building, staring out at the stars and sipping on a hot cup of tea. I think it’s lucky I’ve held on until now, in a district as gray and dreary as this one. Maybe it’s because I value the sun just as much as the moon—does that sound too philosophical for you? What I’m saying is that every moment has to be special; every instant has to be an ounce of gold.
When you’re young, you think about the beauty of the summer. You think about how the sun hasn’t set yet, that there are so many more minutes and hours until the red fades to purple and then the almighty black. You crave the moments of light because they are fresh and sweet. Darkness is supposed to be frightening. We have less control when night falls, even with the burning lamps that line the streets, because anyone could be creeping around a corner. Much easier it is to spend your days bathed in sunlight, reaping the crops that grow and the warmth of the star above. Youth is, will be, the measure of moments. Was this one better than the last? Have I done enough, in enough time, for it to be valid? I was no different as a boy, wanting the world to be my oyster even when I knew I wasn’t going to find any pearls. Save for that I had a mother and father that loved me and enough to eat, I wasn’t particularly lucky.
I stand now in my office, ruffling through the files of the two boys that have decided to entertain me this evening. This is a new initiative, one that scratches an itch. I have no children of my own, and no family to speak of. My own mother and father died of old age, no sob story. It was that I saw the games again this past year, and the reaping, and thought of how lonely and awful those children looked lined up in rows. This life is hard. Too hard for the ones without parents, with lost sisters and brothers, or violence that appears behind closed doors. I could be like the rest of the men and women of this district and keep to myself. It is none of my business to help anyone; I have not been asked to provide such a service. But it is not about the act of heroics that inspired me. It is about the chance to make a difference, a true difference, in the life of someone else that inspired me.
When you pass from childhood to adulthood—some pass much earlier than others—time is not about measuring moments. Time is wholeness. We are the sum of our experiences, not the singular pass of this moment to the next. Children live to react to the hands that have been dealt. A lucky roll of the dice can bring a smile or a harrowing wail. Many men are just children with bigger bodies, they live in this world of one moment to the next. But those that see the world as a whole are the ones that live and live fully. It’s not easy. It takes more to see the horizon than the spec in front of your face. But that’s why I love the fall. It’s why I love the dark and light equally. Because it is the sum of everything that gives them beauty.
It’s not much. My office has one long couch, a comfy chair, a squat little wood coffee table, and a desk with a chair. A door to the side leads to the experiment room. Here there are cages of mice and rats and my daily routine of testing the drugs necessary for the capitol. I’ve locked it as a precautionary measure. We’ll need just this room for all of the sessions. It leads out into the hallway of our nondescript building. It’s lit by cheap fluorescent lighting and painted the same off-white that gets mistaken for a dirty gray. There’s a buzzer off along the wall that lets me ring in any visitors; the trick is that I’ve taped over the knob so that anyone can get up past eight o’clock. I place a hat and slips of paper down on the coffee table and take a seat on the chair. A few small candy treats sit in their brightly covered wrappings on the table.
Tonight will be about the truth. An introduction to—perhaps, a long season of renewal for my charges. I hope to push them to open up, and perhaps, tell me what I need to know. It could be an utter disaster, inviting these strangers to a group to discuss what ails them. But then, it’s better than doing nothing. And that they are coming on their volition is enough to signal a willingness to try. At this I recline in the chair and wait, readying myself for the warm introduction I hope to give.
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