an ode to reason

i dont understand why we do this.

years have gone by, great men preached all they can, to masses that celebrated them for their words.

now, history remembers these great men for their words and not the spirit of what they meant.

buddha, gandhi, martin king jr have all graced our history books as men who had something important to say. now, all we find is how they lived their lives, but not how they pleaded us to live ours.

is it just that ignrance corrodes all ideals, or is it just human nature to lose sight of the important?

gandhi said ” jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you christians- you are not like him”

if he had said this today, the world media would have branded him a proponent to their lord and savior jesus, but would never take the time to understand why he said this, or what he said by this.

to remember a man for his deeds and his words is fine, but forgetting the spirit and living by the words disrespects their memory as much as causing a genocide in their name. but alas, we huumans are not above that. countless wars waged in the manes of people who would have detested the very idea of a war just stand to show that we should learn to be better than we were.

the past is the past, but if we learn nothing from it then we should rather live in the past.

this was to be a piece on ignorance corrupting the best of ideals, but what can i do; i am merely human. it is in my nature to lose sight of the important.