My birthday speech. A.k.a. How I feel most of the time.

Please note: While this is exactly what was going through my head, I do have a flair for the overly dramatic. Please keep this in mind as you read.

All,
Today is my birthday. I'd like to think that there is at least one day a year that we can tell everyone just how we feel, without people judging, hating, disagreeing or looking down on us. Maybe that's what a birthday should be, instead of an excuse to party, get drunk and take the day off. Using similar words, we could also call it a "sick day." Just replace "party" with "sleep" and "get drunk" with "Take lots of meds."

"So I walked upon high. And I stopped within the edge, to see my world below... and I laughed at myself while the tears rolled down, 'cause it's the world I have known..."

I linked a youtube video on my facebook page. This is often how I feel every day as I watch the world work. People on the light rail. Friends and family. Relationships I've set in motion, and ones I've stopped. People's reactions to me and the world around them. Politics. Philosophy. Economics. Humanity.

It brings me to tears daily. Watching violence in the world, among people. Watching politics brawl it out over minutia, like "saving the economy" and gay marriage. The whole while the Pedagogy tries to cram a particular political ideal down the throats of the college bound and politicians vie for constituency through populism and misdirected fiscal oppression of groups the "public" views as bad.

To the Christians that might get upset at the idea of gay marriage:
Who are you to execute the will of God on your fellow human beings? Right or wrong, it is, and was never for you to decide. Let them come before St. Peter for judgment.

In the same context - To the liberals and conservatives: Is it not ironic, that your own modern politics seeks the same thing? To impose their version of morality on the whole of society?

Our society is enveloped in the idea of imposing our notions of right and wrong on our neighbors. Some have even come to believe that it's not possible to be politically free, without doing so. We've forgotten the difference between freedom from and freedom to. We've lost the core of what makes a right "inalienable."

Every action we take, is an exchange. We debate and trade criticisms we ourselves, do not see. We speak and exchange ideas, and good will. We trade goods, and exchange what we can produce, for that we cannot. We exchange our masculine traits for the feminine ones we do not possess. We burn fuel or catch wind to spin a turbine, and exchange heat or force into energy. The essence of all of nature relies on exchanges. Even microorganisms - Mitochondria allows the lungs to exchange CO2 for O2.

Yet as I see the world attempt to force these transactions between existents, as I see people forced to do business with others, forced to pay sums for nothing, forced to continue when they've said "no more, I'm done" I can't help but feel pained. As I watch Christians attempt to impose their ideology on the homosexual. As Liberals and Conservatives alike attempt to impose their morality on one another's politics. As a thief imposes his will upon a victim to get a paycheck.


"One of the judges, acting as prosecutor, had read the charges.
"You may now offer whatever plea you wish to make in your own defence," he announced. Facing the platform, his voice inflectionless and peculiarly clear, Hank Rearden answered:
"I have no defence."
"Do you --" The judge stumbled; he had not expected it to be that easy. "Do you throw yourself upon the mercy of this court?"
"I do not recognise this court's right to try me."
"What?"
"I do not recognise this court's right to try me."
"But, Mr. Rearden, this is the legally appointed court to try this particular category of crime."
"I do not recognise my action as a crime."
"But you have admitted that you have broken our regulations controlling the sale of your Metal."
"I do not recognise your right to control the sale of my Metal."
"Is it necessary for me to point out that your recognition was not required?"
"No. I am fully aware of it and I am acting accordingly."

He noted the stillness of the room. By the rules of the complicated pretence which all those people played for one another's benefit, they should have considered his stand as incomprehensible folly; there should have been rustles of astonishment and derision; there were none; they sat still; they understood.
"Do you mean that you are refusing to obey the law?" asked the judge.
"No. I am complying with the law - to the letter. Your law holds that my life, my work and my property may be disposed of without my consent. Very well, you may now dispose of me without my participation in the matter. I will not play the part of defending myself, where no defence is possible, and I will not simulate the illusion of dealing with a tribunal of justice."
"But, Mr. Rearden, the law provides specifically that you are to be given an opportunity to present your side of the case and to defend yourself."
"A prisoner brought to trial can defend himself only if there is an objective principle of justice recognised by his judges, a principle upholding his rights, which they may not violate and which he can invoke. The law, by which you are trying me, holds that there are no principles, that I have no rights and that you may do with me whatever you please. Very well. Do it." "Mr. Rearden, the law which you are denouncing is based on the highest principle - the principle of the public good."
"Who is the public? What does it hold as its good? There was a time when men believed that 'the good' was a concept to be defined by a code of moral values and that no man had the right to seek his good through the violation of the rights of another. If it is now believed that my fellow men may sacrifice me in any manner they please for the sake of whatever they deem to be their own good, if they believe that they may seize my property simply because they need it - well, so does any burglar. There is only this difference: the burglar does not ask me to sanction his act.""


These are the things that bring tears to my eyes. The core of what depression I experience. This is the world I have known. In many ways, I wish to no longer be a part of it - Yet I cannot simply turn and walk away, the action of suicide it's self, being immoral and contradictory as I cannot value anything if I'm dead. Plus, there's so much good in this world, at times, I can't help feeling anything but gratitude, for every single moment of my stupid little life.