Imagine

"Imagine all the people, living life in peace"

John Lennon, Imagine 

I lost my faith in our future a couple of years ago. There are too many wars, too much violence, and this planet does not deserve us. However, I strongly believe in those people who “carry the fire”, who are different, and I strongly believe that children can be moulded and taught to carry this fire, because they are all born with it. 

I was reading the other day Steinbeck’s East of Eden, and I came across the myth of Cain and Abel, and perhaps the first story of an unloved child by his father. And I agree with Steinbeck, that this is square one, the birth of anger, bitterness and inflicting wounds to other human beings, and we are all Cain’s ancestors.

“I think this is the best-known story in the world because it is everybody’s story. I think it is the symbol story of the human soul. […] The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt – and there is the story of mankind. I think that if rejection could be amputated, the human would not be what he is. Maybe there would be fewer crazy people. I am sure in myself there would not be many jails. It is all there – the start, the beginning. One child, refused the love he craves, kicks the cat and hides his secret guilt; and another steals so that money will make him loved; and a third conquers the world – and always the guilt and revenge and more guilt. The human is the only guilty animal. […] Therefore I think this only and terrible story is important because it is a chart of the soul – the secret, rejected, guilty soul.”

 (John Steinbeck, East of Eden, 271)