There are many good and noble things to die for. Many things die every day. People die. Relationships die. Careers die. Businesses die. Nations and civilizations die. Planets, stars, and galaxies die. So, what is worth killing for?
What do I mean by killing? Dying for something is an act of sacrifice, and maybe of love. It is compromising or giving our life to save, better or benefit another. But to kill? One may presume that simply having the capacity or the ability to kill means to be in a position of power, usually in a situation wherein the killer isn’t likely to come to harm themselves.
We kill bugs, plants, animals and other things considered lesser-than-us all the time. We even eat many of them – which is arguably the primary reason for killing. But we also kill to protect our property, our sovereignty and our individuality.
Some of us kill for money, or our god, or our country, but these things are becoming increasingly passé; the true reasons and rationale for the endless cycles of violence, wars, and destruction are becoming widely known and plainly transparent. At the same time, increasingly awake, aware and enlightened human beings simply cannot blindly abide the low-integrity psychopath, blurry morality, and unnatural insanity. Perhaps this is merely my hope, or a grand speculative observation, rather than the truth of the modern world. Time will tell.
What is truly worth killing? Obviously, it is something that by being dead and gone is believed to provide one a liberation or disencumbrance of enough leverage or value to justify its ending or erasure. You may have already guessed it: an idea; a thought construct; a belief; a program or condition – that is something worth killing.
But are these things even possible to kill? Well, no. The ethereal and energetic nature of mind/heart/soul expressions or adoptions are intangible, philosophical, psychological, and spiritual. They survive and thrive either by our resistance or adherence to them, and believing we may summarily kill them – or their inevitable somatic manifestations – is simply arrogance.
The truth is that an idea has use, and more importantly, its shell is not its essence; the superficial and sensorial are not where veracity nor the falsifiable are found. The seed of an idea/thought/belief may be more useful in understanding and discerning the source of the tree, roots, and soil from which it came. These places all have overt and hidden messages, mysteries and map-making information for us. But it’s easy to get lost in the minutiae, and remember that seeking truth – killing the lies, the causes of pain and suffering – is a lifelong pursuit, not simply a weekend retreat.
Life happens for us in the here and now. The past and the future, the sowing and the harvest, are merely extremities of the toroidal nature of our cognitive and conscious reality – always just out of reach, but always propelling, informing, defining and refining our story.
Commitment to your best life, to your truest values and most authentic purpose, creative expression and service to your body, mind, spirit – and to the greater collective – may be worth killing for.
Solvitur ambulando