Somewhere on my path, I lost myself, and since then I just can't find my way home. I think I know where my home is, but I just can't find it. I walk, probably like the majority of us, on a strange road. I don't know where it leads, I just keep on walking. And I tell you now, this road is frustrating me, and I'm sick of it.
At some point in ones life, we all get to a crossroad, we all get to the end of a road, of a path and we start to question the path and all the things that lay on it, all the decisions we made on that path. I guess the time is upon me to change roads and to change my old ways. That's probably the big problem of this world; that we always talk as a community about change, and how things are so wrong and yet we do nothing to change our ways. Yes it's true, change must first come from the inside, from ourselves. But the question I have today that is slowly killing my mind, taking control of my spirit, is change. Has change ever been more than some words on a blog, or part of a speech? You really want to know what I think? I think that change has never really been more than an assumption, that with words the world will change, and that with time all will change.
That's why tonight I say bye bye, thanks but no thanks to that assumption. No, nothing has changed. Some of it is human nature, that's probably true; maybe it just is human nature. I think it's something that yes, it sure is part of human nature, the fact that words are lighter than acts, and the fact that human beings just don't have the motivation, or just maybe because motivation like everything in this world fades away, with time.
For too long, I've been too sure, for too long I had the idea, that inside my life there was only me. For too long I was an egoist, not thinking about tomorrow, thinking about the present, and not realizing that maybe there was something more to all of this. Sometimes I have flashbacks. Yeah , I knew real people that wanted to change the world, like Mike; well now, Mike's dead, gone forever, his body washed away by the deep darkness of reality. I remember being told that MLK talked about the promised land and never got there because of two bullets and a gun. I know Jesus changed the world in some, but our sins crucified him, and our sins will crucify the Jesus to come and all the other men who bring change. I know my sins crucified them, do you?
During all of history, people rised, called for change, believed. Yet no matter how much praise we have for them, there is one reality, the reality of failure that describes them all. Yeah Woodstock. Yeah the 1960's. Yeah Marx, and yeah, Malcolm X. Oh and poor Müntzer, the one who believed that a kingdom of heaven on earth was about to come; nothing is about to come.
Look over there, do you see that woman, that old lady, living out of bags? And there, do you see those poor men, drinking, trying to forget that when they get home they will have no way of feeding their family? Yeah look over there, that poor thing is a woman, society made her go crazy, inside her lays a baby, just another kid that will never get to be the man he wants to be. Once, a man told me "if you put your head to it you can be anything you want to be". Bullshit; I'm frank all this here isn't anything you'll find in a Newsweek tribune or in Times magazine, all this here you'll never find in a politician's speech. But that's the way it is... isn't it, that's just the way it is.
Well I'm sick of that way, I'm sick of not being capable of changing my damn ways. I'm sick of not being there for you brother. And when I say brother, I mean many things. It's time for society to notice, that we're all in this together. I was born in Canada, you in Portugal, maybe you in France, in China, Holland, India etc... anywhere, everywhere, the thing is the place you were born is just random. I could have been born in Somalia, or maybe in Afghanistan, it's just pure chance to have been born here in a place like this one. The walls we put up in between us are invisible, they don't really exist, they're part of our imagination, they're just there to protect us because we're scared of our differences. No this isn't anything like the stuff you'll find on CNN or in Newsweek is it? And yet we know that all of this is true, all these things happen to be facts. We know that all of these things are facts, and we stand here, wait and watch, as day after day stuff just gets more screwed up. 130 dead in Africa this week, racism rising in America. For if there is a thing I understood lately, it's probably that our happiness may not lay in the fate of others, but one thing is sure my fate is linked to yours, be you in Africa or in Asia. I don't even know and still your acts affect me, and my acts affect you, and we have an obligation to one another. All the prophets say that we are all brothers, equal under the glimpse of God above. I might not have much in common with you, but I do have one thing, my future.
And yet I stand here, and I write, and yet the world still churns on wrongly. People still die of curable diseases, people still die because of those invisible walls and of those made up differences. And yet we know the facts, we talk about change. The problem is that we talk about it but we don't reallu trust it, we don't really believe in it. Sometimes I wake up in the morning, and the day never comes, it just stays dark: lights out people. Yeah, that's why I'm getting the hell off this road... and this change is dedicated to three people, to my two brothers (Kieran and Theo: no matter how far you are away from me tonight I hope that through the words of this message the kilometres shall disappear) and the 3rd one I have yet to find. I'll get to that one some day.
And yet I see no changes. I guess it's up to us to make the changes and words reality; I guess we can't ask anything from any one, we've got to flip these to heaven by ourselves. Yeah people, my fight starts here, and until the day I die I promise that I'll never give up this fight. First I'm going to fight myself and open my eyes.
In the morning, the cold smoothly rises; I get up and do my stuff. I walk down my street, head to the train, you know I'm Canadian I guess my genes have let me down (messing around, of course): I get really cold in the morning. And every morning I get to the station. There on a bench lays an old man about 50. Each and every morning, I pass him by and think "who knows, one day, that could be me". Most people might think the same thing when they pass him by, but they just pretend that he doesn't exist... That's the problem, that's society's problem, we just pass by stuff, the problems of others because we've got money, so why would we care ? Well no, for my liberty lays in your liberty, our liberty lays in a more general liberty of all. My happiness lays with yours, and our happiness lives only with global happiness. For the problem of some men in this place is a problem for all. The riots in far away lands of Guinea; yes, that's my problem. The genocide in Darfour; yes, that's my problem.
Here's your international moment of zen
Sky
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