I can't help but think about everything wrong with the world we live in. The never ending conflict, tyranny, oppression and hardship that plagues our planet. In my mind's eye countries, indeed entire regions have blended into continents in a perpetual tug of war.

Babies are born into unjust societies, robbed of a chance to truly live before they've even taken their first breath. Children are forced by circumstance to become breadwinners, defenders of their families and societies - all before they have even tasted adolescence.

Liberators who once offered a ray of hope reveal themselves to be the devil in disguise. One man takes the life of another because of the name of his tribe, the colour of his skin, the god to whom he prays, for financial gain, to "settle" grievances that began before any of us can even remember.

I spare a thought for the challenges of the world today. I feel compelled to help make it better. And then I come back to reality. There is little economic incentive for the world to care about the people of Eastern DRC. There is no political motivation for intervention in Zimbabwe. Israel and Palestine may never find a mutually agreeable solution. The conflict in Darfur has been around so long that much of the world now takes its existence as a given. And so the list goes on.


So many problems. None without solution. All merely lacking a sense of common will and purpose from those in power today.

I am only one man. I cannot change the world alone and I understand this.

But that will not stop me working towards a better world. My only fear is that I may be alone in my ambition. And all my tomorrows will be as today. Set against the backdrop of a bruised and battered planet, a world shamefully shy of its infinite potential. A world unable to fulfill the simple promise of a good life for all.

To change the world, start with one step.
However small, the first step is hardest of all
Once you get your gait, you'll be walking tall
You said you never did...
Because you might die trying.
If you close your eyes, cause the house is on fire
And think you couldn't move, until the fire dies
The things you never did, because you might die trying
Will be as good as dead
Because you might die trying.

If you give, you begin to live
You get the world...
You begin to live...
You might die trying

(Dave Matthew's Band)

I flew into a rage because that's everything I know.
I know 100 ways to be a good girl...100 ways, my willingness to please.
I know 100 ways to be a good girl.
Still I'm alone, I'm alone, I'm alone, I'm alone, I'm alone, I'm alone, I'm alone, I'm alone...

(Skunk Anansie)

"Steve Austin, astronaut. A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster." - Oscar Goldman

Dreams be dreams...

Today a man told me his dream. The mark he hoped to leave behind. Nothing fancy or overly audacious, just playing his hand and staking a claim on life.

It made me think. Some of us spend our lives working towards our dreams.

And some of us spend our lives running away from them.

It kind of sucks. Realising that your entire life, all your dreams, hopes, aspirations and determination have brought you to this point.

No rewind. No eject. And now its too late to start again. You already pushed play.

Fuck!

Tonight the man who roams the lands beyond the horizon, finds that he has an itch.
An unshakeable desire to taste life in its purest form.
An insuppressible longing to take it all in.
The good. The bad. And any measure of combinations that lie in between.

Tonight this man is reborn.
Yet tomorrow he will awake within the confines of a familiar shell.
A cageless prison.
A reality more politely known as hell.

He will remain faceless.
And his voice will be but another in the crowd.
His thoughts will become baseless.
As one by one, his dreams are gradually drowned.

In sooth I know not why I am sad.
It wearies me, you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me
That I have much ado to know myself.

(Antonio, The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare)

I survive my life it seems by pretending I am not actively involved in it.
Somehow I am just a curious member of the audience,
An innocent onlooker,
Trapped in the body of the lead character.

Holding all the cards in my hands, yet too weak to change a thing.
Powerless to all around me,
Just a spectator,
Trapped in the reality of all that I am and nothing I could be.

And so the show must go on...