“Never Alone” – At the West End Gallery
“When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.”
―
One of the things I worry about as I get older is that there may come a day when I don’t care anymore. That there might come a day when I would lose all interest in those things that once sparked fires within me.
That I won’t be moved by the emotion of the moment.
That I will lose the ability to feel love and joy.
And despair and grief.
How awful it must be to not feel those things?
They represent the high and low moments of our lives, marking our existence here. We experience both poles of emotion simply because they come from our caring for something.
And to not care anymore signifies a loss of believing that we have any sort of purpose here on this planet or that we owe nothing to its future.
It’s like an old person not planting a tree because they won’t be around to one day see it in its maturity. They don’t see that the simple act of planting it is a sign of belief in the future, that their nurturing of the young tree is a symbol that they still care about that future.
It is ultimately an act of caring and kindness.
I think you will find that those folks who plant trees when they are really too old to dig a proper hole have a great love of life, that they care deeply for what happens to the world around them. They laugh loudly and cry heartily. They know joy when the world is right and despair when the world is wrong.
And in their despairing of these wrongs, they seek to make the world right once more.
Because they still care.
I feel despair on many days lately. But I also find myself gladdened by knowing that it is a result of still caring, that I haven’t thrown in the towel and just given into the virtual death that comes with a life lived in not caring.
That beyond despair there remains the hope of joy once more.
Redtree Times 
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