Musings in Philosophy: You Are Responsible for Your Rose

“We plunder the earth hoping that accumulating material surplus will make up for the profound, unfathomable thing that we have lost.”

“The Love Laws. Who should be loved. And how. And how much.”

“You are responsible for your rose.”

Aries. Aries, the Greek God of War. Aries, my birth symbol. Arete, try to do everything to the Best of Your Ability. A war that is life, perhaps? I do not like war and I do not condone violence, but life is a war, a violent fight every day for survival, a fight every day to continue breathing, even in sleep, a fight against dreams that threaten to engulf the psyche when you are most vulnerable.

I am responsible for my roses and I want only to protect them, protect them from the War of the World, it is best indeed to be a beautiful little fool, a ditz with tits, a more voluminous chest than brain, for then it is quite easy to be ignorant of the havoc and pain the War of the World, Aries, wreaks on the souls of those who understand always, even in their sleep… but I cannot allow them (my roses) to be ignorant, to not live with the Best of Your Ability, Arete, because knowledge and intelligence are far better tools. So my choice is to hurt everyday but be aware, to feel the pain of the world and its inhabitants and the chains with which they bind themselves, iron, sour cold dark biting iron chains, slinking past like the Ghost of Christmas Past, each link heavy, are we not all Scrooge? I would rather hurt and know than float in the clouds of ignorance.

“Man is the measure of all things.” Man is the measure of all things because man has decided that he is important enough to serve as a ruler. A unit of measurement. A Ruler. A means of oppression. How many Men is this civilization? How many square Men is this city? A unit of measure greater and more pretentious than metric or standard or otherwise. Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? You must care for your rose, would you still care if it didn’t smell as sweet, wasn’t called a rose, wasn’t a unit of beauty, would you still cultivate, still incubate, still care, still take responsibility? How many Men is your rose, your comparative piece of shit?

Does it change how much you care? Little Prince, Machiavelli Junior, Machiavellichki, my diminutive prince, a ruler, a Ruler, a Man?

Who should be loved? And how?

…and how much?

Everyone deserves to be loved but no one is obligated to love you.

You are a rose and you deserve to be loved and cared for, your beautiful soft petals, but you, my inadequate rose, you are only so many Men, there are better roses, would mediocre by any other name smell as sweet? Oppressive mediocrity, wrap that blanket around your not-velvet-enough petals, cocoon into the world’s disappointment, not even disappointment because the world doesn’t bestow mediocrity with the honor of disappointment, I’m sorry, my little Rose, who isn’t even worthy of the world’s disappointment, much less its love, fall to the wayside because you are only so many Men and will never be cared for because the world is a cruel, lonely, forgetting kind of place and does not have time for those who are Not Enough Men.

Keep solace. Man believes Man is the measure of all things but this pretentious belief is a lie, Man is nothing more than a measure of himself.

Keep solace. You are Not Enough Men and you are already forgotten, but know that you have been forgotten just slightly faster than those forgetting you will be forgotten by the world, the universe, Time, that is indeed a measure of those who measure all existence by themselves.

Time forgets all, loved and unloved.

You, my little Rose, are forgotten, but those who forget you will also, in time, be forgotten too (in Time).

And Time marches on, guarding the guardians guarding the guardians guarding you.