We have heard so many times that it must never happen again, so
our fear makes us unable to distinguish between other people’s ideas
and our own. Even when we hear ideas about freedom or self-
esteem which resonate from our own experiences we are suspicious
that perhaps we are being tricked by the next Hitler. The truth is, our
fear is born in the knowledge that the same system is in power today
as it was fifty years ago, even one-hundred years ago. It is ourselves
we do not trust, for as we travel the world experiencing cultures and
ideas different from our own, we each catch a glimpse of the vicious
cycle which entraps us all. We are never able to recognize
resonance as easily as peoples from other cultures of the world,
because theirs is a struggle to remain in the light, to keep from being
swallowed by the darkness. We, however, have been taught to
believe that we must crawl out of the darkness which is our birthright.
We have been taught that the light is something elusive that we must
struggle for constantly with little hope of grasping. We have been
taught to fear the light so that each time we have it in our hands we
let it slip through our fingers. Then we lie down again in the darkness
and resume our nightmares, secure in the idea that we have just
conquered something evil.