New Paths
Questions With No Answers
The dictionary says "deviant" is someone who "does not fit the conventions, ethical or behavioral, or social expectations of the group or the society in which he lives."
Did we reach the point where our conventions and beliefs faltered? Which were our social expectations?
Ethics, right and wrong behaviors, social good and wisdom, its acceptance and refusal, all come from interacting with others. One has to confer with others on these things. How do we understand, know about them? How do we judge when we talk about what is right and what is wrong? Can moral judgments be objectively true? Do they depend on historical beliefs, or must they suite the world we now live in? Were the Spartans righteous when they left disabled babies die on Mount Taigeto, or the Romans flung traitors from the Tarpeian cliff to their death?
Which were now the evident features of the world, those of our time? Human population had practically disappeared, culled and purged by external entities who appeared to our senses as humanoid figures, glowing in nature and difficult to distinguish from one another. Most probably, humans were now so few and scattered that small groups would need to grow significantly from within before the chance to interact with other communities could ever materialize in the future.
If our primary objective and duty was not to give up and disappear, like a blink in the planet's existence, then we needed to reinvent ourselves from the ground up. Were these not God's holy words: "That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying, I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven." Was there a new start? Was this the age to come? If so, what would be our role and destiny?
As for the entities-apart from the seemingly obvious role of being our executioners-what was their role in our future, and what did we need to wait for? Had I understood them correctly? Was I coming too early, was it too soon for them to deal with me, with us? Did they have expectations for us, and were we fulfilling them? And what if we weren't.?
Whatever our choices, did we deviate from the expected path? Deviance is far from being synonymous with freedom. I have always wondered mercilessly if I was ever free in my choices, or was I simply reactive and a mere slave to my reactions? This is even more crucial an issue for younger ones, like Annah and Laura, because youth is the age of choices. Important choices that may give a direction to one's life or lead to another, terribly different one. Will they be given the time to make their own choices?
We thought about the directions our lives might take and the bubble of "normality" that I strived to maintain around us. What was normal or abnormal could not be