Answering Hamlet's Call.

“Absent thee from felicity awhile and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain to tell my story.”

As humans we are called—called to see the world (really see the world) see it as it is—in all its pain and mess and glory. We are given a tunnel into the very depths of the world, the earth, the nature of man, but we are also given the (ultimate undeniable unrelenting) privilege of seeing the world as it might be (just might be). And we who are given the sight and the charge to see the gap that we alone have created must demand of ourselves to speak. We—the gifted the cursed the talented the glimmering ever on the brink of mad disaster—we must stay our will to breathe in pain in the gaps, in the slipping between truths, and tell the world the story.

It is surely a burden, for the world is flawed and men are cruel and we are weak, but it is our obligation to continue, to speak, to breathe. For though there is death and pain and sorrow and fear; though there are things unspeakable, unknowable, unreasonable; though there are times that are unlivable, untenable, unsustainable; and though there are moments when we simply want to cry out and end it all and we wonder why oh why am I made of such terrible flesh that will not merely melt away; we must speak. We must.

For if we do not speak, if we do not breathe, if we do not tell the stories that flow like water beneath our pens pencils paint and hands, then tell me, who will tell them? Who will paint the pictures only we can see? Who will sing the songs only we can hear? Who will act the plays only we can write? We must speak: speak in pain, speak in death, absent ourselves from the tempting comfort of a cup of poison that will take us away (so far away).

For this (to live) is the only action of bravery left in the world.