Tainted Halo: Men Among Gods

Where all the good men?

The underworld — the oxymoronic counterpart of the celestials, Dante’s ultimate inferno and man’s reckoning. Our better angels tainted, merely broken heroes on Earth. Where are all the good men?

The modern generation is a chaotic labyrinth of trials and errors. 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s are spent in the realm of wandering and vague explorations. 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, we’re still in an unknown battle. 80’s, and 90’s we settle. 100’s, finally, our proudest moment. When we were born, people call us angels and as we grow up and carry that halo, it slowly dripped with a bucket of paint colors. Every action corresponds to a certain hue. Blue for good behavior, green for kindness, yellow for ominous thoughts, and red for sins. It’s not black and white, it’s a color wheel, a mixture of a human dilemma — the inner struggles, the external pressures, and the innermost feelings on who you really are versus who you want to be.

The worse, a new factor came into play, the battle against who society wants you to become. A selfie-freak, a wonderful storyteller, black hat, spreader of good news or of lies, or an influencer. No matter what is your role, there are consequences. Life is not merely a carousel in an abandoned circus, there are times it is a full-on merry-go-round that is next to a roller-coaster. In all of these, there is romanticism in trying to figure it out. From changing the world to changing filters. People who grew up seeking to be the heroes of the world gets tainted by unnecessary demons. Their halos crowning and yet are dimmed. Men, who do good, do they still exist? or are we dreaming of such return like the elusive El Dorado? A hundred thousand years of existence and men still play God and one-by-one exposed by their own demons as halos diminish and thus the cascade to the gates of hell. While on Earth, the barrage of critics and curses rages on, as the fall happens, the world in its entirety mourns the loss of angels.

Why the ominous downfall? It is the consequence for wielding power like a scattered thunderbolt, using pride to manipulate innocence, and thus when faced with such cause, men feel that they are in a nightmare being lobotomized with their heart exploding. The ephemeral joys of life, transient and short-lived. The greatest discourse, how do we keep our halos untainted? then you realize that the ephemeral is you and that is the most beautiful thing in the universe. The idea of fleeting relevance should inspire a generation to at least try — to try and respect everyone, to try transcendent work that outlive you, to try caring for the stranger next to you, to try kindness amidst the chaotic mess, to try anger when silence is inadequate and to simply try and try harder every time.