Jordan O'Connor
November 20th, 2005

How do you ague in favor of one thing while doing the other? How do you rail against a government that supports a neoconservative agenda while utilizing its benefits? How do you believe in God and murder in the name of God? Are we no more than the sum of our ironies?

I feel embarrassed to say such naive things—to talk about “irony” in that 80’s teen angst way, but be what you know. The thing that troubles me is how separate I can feel from things—almost pathologically so—and that this separateness leaves me helpless. In turn, I am justified in doing nothing. Well, not “nothing.” I want to do something, however, this something needs to be grand, something that will change the world; failing that I’ll do nothing.

How many times have we said, have we heard, that we can’t help everyone? But isn’t this the language of someone enslaved? Shouldn’t we see, not the rewards of our heroics, but rather, the essential nature of humanity?  Shouldn’t we say, it is better to die in a world we love and hold true and dear than to live in an embittered world? Of course this is very easy for me to say, as I sit here, one of the richest five percent of the world’s population—the elite.

Who among us will sing? And how do we write our own true song?

Look at Terry Fox. In its simplistic form he was a young man faced with cancer, faced with death before his time. He took to run from one coast to another in order to raise money and understanding for cancer research, principally a cure.  This simple act—running—has been reaffirmed every year throughout the world. My point is he is a hero because he was his own man.

There is no change made by the herd; it is the individual who stands up, looks to the heart of humanity in its simplest form and acts.  And in such a state there is no irony, there is purity—purity of form, purity of being.

I wonder, in the moments we feel bitter aren’t we the anti-hero?

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