Startled, she wakes from her slumber. Her arms, finger, legs and toes are all strung up to strings. She cannot move in wakeful reality; though only a moment ago she was moving freely in her dreams. Looking to each string, she finds the face of someone or something, tying her down tightly to that which was once said, done, and since left unresolved. It startles her to see what great loads of baggage she is here shown to be weighing her down to the same spot. There is no freedom until she stops falling asleep and pays off her debts, and untangles herself from the web of the past. No longer can she afford to act wrongly and bring upon herself an even heavier state of burden. She now sees what must be done with clarity, as the water of the present guides her to what is owed immediate care.

We are not free, but of course the sweet song of forgetfulness and dreamy distraction can bring us to believe in such delusions. The world is interconnected in such a way that whatever we do, without open eyes to their consequences, will burden ever more our passing journey. Men and women burrow themselves with avoidance and ignorance when they lose sight on the obligation to act rightly towards others. Yet aside from this is the more subtle trap of the emotional hangups which others, in turn, attempt always to throw on our own shoulders. This is the snake which bites its own tale; the positive feedback loop that casts out any hope for escape. Societies and cultures educate each individual to care for what does not matter and hence forget how simple it is to act rightly, without remorse or guilt. It has conditioned its people to conflict with one another at their very core.

The complications of passing guilt for doing or not doing something is given primacy and attention, where a man believes others owe him apologies or a change of behaviour which merits the quality he presumes of his own self-image. It is the lair of vanity — this is — where instead of honest and sober behaviour which move all our muscles only to take care of ourselves and those we care for, we instead believe in a convoluted game of cat and mouse, where the rats chase false dreams and pollute the decency they have stored naturally within their being. From a clean start, a fresh beginning, a man can understand that nothing is owed to him other than to have acknowledged, perhaps, his mere existence.

Yet the politics of society have been wrapped with strings, enveloping each individual with a multitude of others, and that multitude to a massive quantity of other souls which is beyond measure. The convolution of make-believe rights and wrongs, where people swarm to desires that are not of their own design, but rather sung through deafening speakers from branded merchandise and the cheap hope of ever higher personal profits. Life, instead of being seen as simple, is taken as a game which keeps ours heads leveled or drooped to the floor, where, forgetful of the sky, the stars, and the natural rhythm of the day and night, we get lost in the fanciful. The situation is always more simple. Even with the worries on this sad man’s chest — that if he were to simply realize this, half of these strings he is now burdened with would right then disappear.

The other half needs his attention, for they are the leftover remains and consequences of being the cause of misfortune for others. However hard it may be to remember the past and what was done then and there, these debts can be remedied by directing attention to how the current day is lived. The patterns of then are the patterns of now, and by realizing them in the present, he may in some form resolve and dissolve the power those strings have on his future fate. Men cannot wipe clean the past, but they can raise their attention to the results of poor efforts and take into account the need to respect others not only outwardly, but inwardly. He must bring to the level of his eyes the fact that he is no more important than anyone else and that his appreciation of this reality of fair equality will bring him closer to a lightened sanity. The result can, if we let it, become forgiveness of the past and forgiveness in advance.