Where art thou, Clarity?

       'All the world's a stage...' – William Shakespeare

       In the style of all great stories, perhaps we should start with a naïve young person, who believes with great passion – fervour even – that they would be the one to change the world. It should be noted, as this is only the very beginning, that they have not necessarily defined as of yet to what they would strive to alter aforementioned world. Their definition of what the nature of the difference they shall make is still somewhat inconsequential – rather, it is important that greatness, fame, fortune, or other some quantifiable measure of success are attained.

       You have already guessed the next part, I imagine. All good stories have a villain. But what does our young, headstrong and hopeful person face? What challenges shall I, as a fickle and cruel deity of their world, inflict upon said protagonist of this particular story?

       If the objective of verisimilitude were to be accomplished, we might employ no single evil entity. Rather, it would be the inescapable and numerous small challenges of day-to-day life as we know it. Is this not the greatest enemy all of us know – plain old ordinary life? On the face of it, that would seem to be the case, when we consider the permeating, mediocrity-encouraging, oppressive nature of the global madhouse we so proudly call ‘society’.
       Let us choose, then, the greatest of villains, the arch-enemy of all that we know as good in life. That villain would be change, I contend. For change is to be feared and fear cripples us, paralyses us. Change is in every single thing, change is in our nature. And our hero will falter and fail...

       But let us transcend that, shall we? We are, after all, telling a story... And all stories worth telling need a good, old-fashioned villain. Except there are no more of those, it would seem. The lines between good and evil, right and wrong, black and white have sort of become muddled up, confused, fuzzy... indistinguishable. There is no clarity left in this world. 

       And our hero falters and fails. He never suspected! She never knew how complex, frightening, perplexing this world actually is. He never knew how small and insignificant he was. Who was she to think she could make a difference, to change things, to make it all better?
       Yet, this is not the way our story ends, I should hope. There are greater challenges than our own uncertainties, greater obstacles than our vanity. And greater threats than our broken dreams. Our strength is greater than we know... And this young person will one day rise again to be a hero. Because we need heroes – we need to be the hero, at least in our own eyes or the eyes of our loved ones.
       And as long as we do, there is hope.