…two for the money…

Monday night football: Minnesota versus New York. You can bet on me, because they call me the million dollar man, oh yes. I have the numbers you need and the numbers that are the winning scores. From Hollywood to Tokyo to London, this is where it is, that’s right, this is where it all happens. I bring you the picks, I bring you the picks.

But after it all. After all the highs and the money, the fame, the temptation, the ecstasy that’s ripping your soul, the fantasy that engulfs your reality, after all that happens, after the hollow reveals itself: the truth appears. And the truth is that there’s nothing. There is nothing. There is nothing in this human existence. The body is crippled and the soul is based on ideas too fickle to hold together anything of substance. There’s a broken amalgam of atoms, there is nothing. The pain may trick us into believing that there is more than the shell, but the shell is all there is. We’re nothing. We’re not anything because of the money, because of the power, because of the control, because of the fame. We’re all nothing because the world that surrounds us is made up of lies. And with a blow, with a gentle blow everything can crumble. We’re nothing unless there is some other soul we can hold onto. We’re not even a mustard seed. I doubt we’re even a dust particle on a mustard seed. There’s emptiness. There’s void. There’s a deep dark. It may be hard hitting, but there’s a point at which the road between right and wrong divides and we’re all made to choose. And we all veer off course. And at one point we all realise that there’s nothing. There’s famine and bloodshed, there’s hatred and vengeance. There are people whose clear thinking is blurred by the idea of eternal glory and there are people whose clear thinking is blurred by the smell of money. Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth: memorise this because we’re nothing. We’re all nothing. Nothing. Unless you let someone close enough to touch your soul. Can you feel them touching your soul? Can you feel them reaching to your core with the tender, honest, truthful words? That’s the rope that we must all try to catch before we fall into the abyss of nothing. Clench that someone who can make you feel like something because otherwise it’s just a skeleton, a shell, a hard suit with a beautiful mask that we wear during the few years we inhabit this earth.

I’m held with a safety harness, hovering above the lakes and mountains and planes. I’m held on a rope that allows me to freely almost fly between the different lands and different ideas. I see that there can easily be nothing. And I see that there can easily be something. It’s what we chose and it’s what makes us so incredible and mesmerising. Amidst all the brokenness there’s a ray of light. Is there a ray of light? So strong is the human race that with the fellowship of only two, a fort can be built. And that fort will keep out all the evils it will be so mighty. The task is merely to unite with another and start hinging the windows and doors.

So tomorrow I’ll go and vote. Not because I feel passionate about it, but because I must. I must for the sake of women in the world who cannot make their opinions count. For people in the world who are silenced when they speak the truth about injustice. I must vote for those before me on the pages of history who fought with all their mights for my right. For those who were maimed, tortured, killed, humiliated so that tomorrow I can tick, cross out, mark what I want to happen to my life. For my grandparents who never in their lives could vote, who never mattered. I’ll take a side because I must. The lack of conviction is paralysing but not totally decapitating. I must honour the legacy of all the freedom fighters, present and gone, with my participation.

And why do I feel like I’m nothing? Because the battles that I fight are all internal. Because I can vote already. Because I have no need in anything. Because only if I was to sell my soul would I have hindsight. Because it’s the disease of mankind all over the world. Because the life of abundance and luxury creates idleness and complacency. Because so many will not go and vote tomorrow. Because so many feel not one bit better off for all that they let in. Who will teach us? If only I knew...