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We acquire knowledge through various
cognitive processes. We feel the breeze, we see the stars, we hear
the beat. Out senses are many, and from what we gather with them, we
reason our reality into existence.
But with all our senses and reasoning
abilities, what knowledge can we trust? How can we verify what our
senses tell us? Can we trust our reasoning abilities to interpret the
information correctly? How do I know you are there? Are you alive, or
do you just mimic life? How do you know that I am here and alive?
For all the posturing of unity and
common interest, the stark truth is that each man is an island. In
fact, an island in an endless ocean. “I think, therefore I am”,
this much I can trust, but all else is suspect. While I can estimate
and proximate what your experience of life is, I can never know for
certain. I know you only as far as it equates to my own experience; I
assume your sorrow to mirror mine, but it will always remain an
estimate. You and I are doomed to exist individually. Our paths may
cross, but they never align.
So, in this surreality where man
imposes on man his presumed reality, we bear witness to the cruelty
of life and possibilities being extinguished. Only to force
conformity, to keep hidden what monsters might lurk in the minds of
others.
But even in this there is hope. While
all revolutions fade away, while just laws give way to unjust ones,
there is still freedom. For freedom cannot be given, nor taken away.
Freedom is a choice, a refusal to follow any other reality but your
own. A choice, by a free intellect, to reject external stimuli.