LEADERS, SEEKERS AND SERVANTS

"The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now concerns itself no more, and longs eagerly for just two things - bread and circuses!"

-- Juvenal, The Satires

So I am told that we are to be happy with the faddishness and hysteria which surrounds our current election. "The youth are involved!" scream euphorically the grayed longhairs (those that still have hair), blissed-out on Aquarius Age reminiscences they've passed on to their children, tinged ever so slightly with the flashbacks of acid trips past. Their children quiver and speak in tongues, screaming and chanting their mantras of platitudes while they wait with baited breath for messianic deliverance.

Forgive me, but as I sit here by the Syren Sea, things look just a little different to me. Living alone here gives one perspective. You see, the sea is unmatched in its beauty, with emerald and azure waves, but underneath, the alkaline builds and the life that it contains within it is slowly poisoned away.

Right now, a few yards off, I see Old William, his white hair blowing in the wind, turning somersaults by the shore. The old geezer still moves as if it were 40 years ago, God bless him. There are piles of dead fish on the ground around him, yet he spins and spins. I can hear him shouting that the sea looks wonderful and he can't wait to take his boat out into the water and catch something fresh.

And so Old William is happy. And he dances and twirls all the day long. And his son comes running behind him laughing and singing of fish to be caught and feasts to be.

Well, I just sit here, guitar in hand, strumming a tune no one can hear and saying to myself, "And so it is goes in our great nation."

It is wonderful when citizens become involved with the affairs of state, and there is a fervor for change, but change must come from within us. Each member of a democracy must actively challenge himself or herself to find the answers needed. We cannot look for messiahs to lead us. Emancipation from others comes at a price. Those who come offering to be our protector always leave us the slavery of tyranny as their gift.

We must save ourselves.

Yet this is precisely what we no longer seem capable of doing in America. We distrust each other and worship the wealthy, the anointed, the charming. Rather than answer questions for ourselves, we look for others to solve them for us. The task of the citizen in a democracy is to choose the right people to serve them, not to lead them.

A servant of the people follows the dictates of those by whom they are chosen. We the people offer the solutions and demand that those who take political office enact those solutions as we see fit. Politicians are not there to show us a new way but to follow the way that we show them.

Politicians are the face of the state, while the people are the soul. The beauty of a face is transient, the soul eternal. The face should reflect the soul; the soul should not mimic the face. In order for the spirit of the state to manifest itself, citizens must think independently and not be swayed by glitter and glamour. Sweet words and bright lights are the tools of darkness, seduction and tyranny.

It is not easy to find answers for ourselves, nor is it easy not to be tempted by pundits, false prophets and thieves, but always remember what Thomas Paine said:

"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value."