The Prophet on Crime and Punishment

...then one of the judges of the city stood forth and said, "Speak to us of crime and Punishment".
Ans he answered saying:
It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,
That you, alone and unguarded, commint wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.
And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait awhile unheeded at the gate of the blessed.
Like the ocean is your god-self;
It remains for ever undefiled.
And like the ether it lifts but the winged.
Even like the sun is your God-self;
It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.
But your god-self does not dwell in your being.
Much in you is still a man, and much in you is still not yet man,
But a shapeless pygmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.
And of the man in you would I now speak.
For it is he and not your god-self nor the pygmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime.
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.
Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.
You are the way and the wayfarers.
And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the tumbling stone.
And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:
The murdered is not accountable for his own murder,
And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.
The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked,
And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the felon.
Yes, the gulty is oftentimes the victim of the injured,
And still more often the condemned is the burden-bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.
You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked;
For they stand together before the face of the sun even as black thread and the white and woven together.
And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also.
If any of you would bring the judgement to the unfaithful wife,
Let him also weight the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurement.

.....

What's written above is obe verse from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. Even if it's difficult to interpret what's written in this masterpiece, it is quite easy to understand what this verse meant: THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU PLACE YOUR JUDGEMENT UPON SOMEONE ELSE, FOR HIS POSITION COULD HAVE BEEN VERY EASILY YOURS, TOO.

Walk with your heart AND your head

When I was so little I used to be really really happy when my mom came and gave me one little sweet candy. I would laugh out loud and thanked her thoroughly. I would taste the candy and feel every precious lick as if I would not get a hold on another candy for ever. But then, after several minutes the candy got smaller and smaller until it finished completely, left me with only one white small stick as a reminiscence of the big big happiness I felt just a moment before. Then came the sadness emptiness and that particular feeling caused by subside happiness...

When I was a bit bigger I would jump to the door when I heard my grandma's voice calling my name from the door. I would run and run and hug her and told her how much I missed her. We would play the whole afternoon and she would listen to everything I said, even if it was just a child talk. We would have fun and have a nice meal that seemed to last just a second. And then came the moment when she had to go home and left me with another years before I could smell her skin and hair again, feel her soft and wrinkled hand caressing me again. Then the familiar pang of sadness and emptiness and that particular feeling caused by subside happiness...

When those rare meetings were taken away from me as she passed away so suddenly in the early morning thirteen years ago, when I realized I would never feel her touch and see her smile again, when I saw my grandpa cried over her final rest and witnessed how much he lost her, when I felt the tears streaming down my cheek and I couldn't stop myself from wailing from my lost; thinking that my world would never be the same again, I knew it was time to learn to shield myself away from those sadness and emptiness and that particular feeling caused by subside happiness...

When it was time to learn to share my heart with my high school sweetheart, I would embrace every day with smile and went to school with full spirit. The world seemed so bright and promising and everyday was heaven on earth. I would enjoy every minute we spent together, from the moment we sat on his car to the time when we called each other from the radio to say goodnight and goodluck. I would feel the strength of his hand when he put it around my shoulder. Then came the time when our paths were no longer crossing each other and we should go to our separate ways. Again and again the familiar sadness emptiness and that particular feeling caused by subside happiness...

The aftertaste of happiness, is REGRET. Because after everything was gone, the pain and hollow were almost unbearable. God creates everything in balance. Happiness and sadness are like two surface on the same coin; when one is awake, the other is lurking in the dark. There was not one could last forever because another would never sleep for long. Behind a happiness there's always a sorrow. And the greater the happiness, the greater the sorrow. Balance. Libra.

I don't need these unbearable sadness and emptiness and regret anymore. I need a wall. I need a distance. I need a brake. I need less emotion. I need a composure. I need calmness. I need a warning. A warning not to be too happy.