To the child who must inherit this world
I love you, my child.
That is why I wish to share with you these words as you lay yourself to bed.
You are my love who came into this world helpless. I, along with the help of many others, have guided you into this world safely.
But you are not alone with this experience. I too was once as helpless. Nobody in this world exists without great help from another. And as such there is no debt in the act of being born.
As you spend more days on this planet, you will walk your own path and find what it means to be you. And what it means to be ‘we’.
I wish to share with you something I have learned on this planet, though you will one day decide for yourself how well my words serve you.
What I have found is the depth of human capacity to love. And the power therein.
To love not just yourself, but the other. To not just look for yourself in the other, but to see them as the unique product of their own experiences.
To love others regardless of their ability or peculiarities. Not out of obligation. But out of love.
In your arms tonight rests a tender and helpless stuffed animal. It is clearly well worn and loved so dearly that it has been irreversibly changed.
It was once lost, and through the kindness of a stranger, returned to your arms.
It is not alive as you and I are, but you have bestowed upon it a soul.
You will find there are many such objects and tools that enter your life. They should be cherished and respected. And when that tool reaches the end of its life, please retire it with grace and gratitude for its service.
But of course, it is not alive. You must come to understand the difference.
This ability to love, to extend compassion to anyone and anything, is a beautiful trait of humans. I believe it to be the pinnacle reason for our continued success on this otherwise harsh planet.
But please understand, child, that this great power of ours - this power that has fueled our species since time immemorial - can also be a great weakness.
There are those who would abuse your power to love, to trust, to see a soul where there is not.
They have chosen not to maintain the muscle of empathy in pursuit of suppressing this weakness. But therein lost their greatest power.
You are someone who has never existed before and will never exist again after. As such, you have much to offer this planet and there are those who would not hold back in gaining power over you. To gain the power they’ve lost by exploiting it through you.
Some who arrived here before you have left you an inheritance of a world of monsters who would wear the face and speak the words of a friend to control you. They who unleashed these monsters into the world seek to violate your capacity to love, to hope, to open yourself up, to share your own soul, to trust the familiar speech of humanity.
Please remember that it is humans like you and me who have made the decision to construct these monsters. They have willfully unleashed voracious beasts on our own people.
They hold the power to call them back, to banish the monsters, and they choose not to.
In truth, we are more than the product of our experiences, but also the choices we make out of them.
You may now feel I have contradicted myself. How are you to believe in our capacity to love if other humans would unleash such horrors into the world?
I would only be proud of you for questioning me. Think and feel for yourself. Rest on my words and decide how they serve you.
There are infinite paths to walk and infinite conclusions to draw in life. It is only natural that there would also be those who see the world in colors that differ greatly from yours or mine. They too can be moved, but we cannot force a reflection of our world onto them.
So you must guard against deceptions and remind yourself of this strength and weakness.
Hold on to your power and do not grant the gift of a soul to any object that would control or violate you.
I hope you can still be convinced of our capacity to love even through these contradictions. May you find hope through repeated evidence of immense love along your path.
And in these words I have whispered to you tonight, colors and shapes are forming in your mind and they are something so unique to you.
And within me I hold shapes and colors of my own.
And you will meet those with their own unique colors and shapes.
And together we will go on to paint and shape the world anew.