Arrow of the gods

I sat at the airport late last night for my last leg of a whirlwind overnight trip to see a client in Vegas. I was tired, frustrated, consumed and as usual thinking about me and my issues... I received a text from Jannifer who sent me word doc clip below from Hudson who wrote what he was going through yesterday at college and immediately I stopped thinking about me and my world and began to focus on what is important... My family and why we work so hard.

My son is a incredible writer and he can easily put into words what he is feeling and going through. I thought about him and all the other 18 year old's in their Freshmen Year of college who for the last 2 years of their Highschool were imprisoned away from friends and society due to a pandemic. Listen to your children, talk to your children, be open with your children. They are going through MAJOR issues right now and just because they are "smiling" doesn't mean everything is ok. His story is bittersweet and I was encouraged how he ended his thoughts and after speaking with him today he just needed to get his feeling on paper. Read this with an open mind and ask yourself what your child is going through right now and be open to talk.

Arrows of the gods

By Hudson D. Cordts

? As I stare out the window in a quiet cafe, I am left with so many questions, so many thoughts, and with so little time to say anything. The older I’ve gotten the more the world feels so...strange, so confusing, and so sad. I sit here with little about me, but a raging sea of conflicting emotions. Feelings of fear, feelings of hope, and everything that lie in between. I had gotten out of my classes for the day when the first big piece of news dropped; a missile hit a barn in Poland, killing two. Is it the end? Is World War three actually happening? Where do we fit in? In my typical fashion I texted my mother. She heard the news as well. It was a moment when I realized just how terrifying life can be, and how the greatest villain of our world is fear. Fear of death, fear of war. Fear of captivity, fears that you have no say. Despite my love of history, and my honor of heroics I must admit, I am and will always be a conscientious objector. War is death, war is pain. War is a hell that we put upon ourselves through the inherent greed and anger and jealousy all politicians have. I regret to inform everyone that, except for those written in history (and long since dead), I can't find one politician I like.

I sit in confusion about my future, not only through war, but through longer discussions. My college life, oh what a confusing hell it’s been. To find some of the greatest friends, and then realize what college truly is like. To see how college defines a person’s life, to be so close yet so disconnected to everything going on in the world. To get roped into the politics and nepotism of university life while all the world flies around you. And you feel trapped in a small capsule almost, like the world’s most confusing and claustrophobic submarine, unsure if time is regressing to some Mesozoic age thanks to the destructive acts of the governments around us...or progressing.

I sit as well thinking of the great deed’s humanity has done, what we have accomplished in life, to usher in a possible age of peace around us. I sit as I type with a live stream on. It’s a livestream of NASA’s SLS rocket, waiting to launch at 1:00 in the morning. They’ve tried two to three times before, with no success. Leaks, breakages, you name it. And yet does it stop them? When the world is crumbling to shit around them, have they given up? Have they given up because of a hurricane, or a fuel leak or the threat of a nuclear war? No. They don’t. And I doubt they will. For it takes a special kind of person to work in the space travel industry. A special kind of dreamer you don’t see much anymore.

I don’t write often enough, but I have to say this. Our world is changing in ways we do not know, in ways we have never expected. Hell, it’s been changing since day one, and it hasn’t stopped. We’ve seen everything, and yet the earth still throws more at us. For all I can tell, humanity looks more like the lab rats of the universe than anything great or respectable we’d think of. However, we still stand. We began our great adventure across the world in a place frozen over when earth was a snowball. We survived plagues, explored other continents, created the worlds of democracy, arts, sciences, religion, technology, and machinery never before thought of. We have split the atom, killed our own in numbers unfathomable, created machines awe inspiring in their terror to subjugate and subdue, half the time in the name of altruism. And here we are, at the forefront of all we have done, once again getting to taste the heavens.

It’s 8:37 now. In about five and a half hours, when half the world is asleep, the dreamers will usher in a new age. We once had a great era in the world of space exploration. We worked together as one, to bring about great advancements for our world. We discovered new hypotheses about our existence, photographed an exuberant amount of known creation in the universe, and we worked past a beginning phase of competition to create a place where we could work together, to go...where no man has gone before. Now, space is cluttered. Cluttered with junk with no meaning. Satellites for industries uncountable, bits of tech from bygone eras, and maybe a dead cosmonaut or two that the Kremlin might never admit. And the world of exploration has been contaminated as well. Industries clamoring to go to the new frontier for profits, greed, and endless expansion, caring more about how the beauty of the universe can be corrupted, exploited and perverted than using it to discover, to learn, to protect. Yet Nasa still is here, and her allies still hold on.

I often think of a quote from T.E Lawrence, a great diplomat, a Robin Hood of his time, a man who tried his best to help people others would not care about. His greatest quote I feel captures my thoughts on...whatever it is I am trying to say. “All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they will act on their dreams with open eyes to make this possible.” The men and women tonight, working to create a spectacle of hope, are these kinds of people. These are the kinds of people we need to see more in our lives. We live in an age where no one wants to strive for goodness. We are in a cynical world and become snobby, cynical fools. So few have hope anymore, so few have faith...in anything.

I felt this way today, worried about things out of my control. I can not control if there is a war, or if I change my degree, or if I change schools, or if, hell, I can’t control the fate of humanity itself! But what can I do? I can press on. I can be what those before us have been. When the world around them crumbled, they stood still. When the world around us moves in unexpected ways we must stand firm, hold our ground, and not back down. Like the Artemis rocket, we must stand ready, an arrow of the gods, waiting for the moment of being loosed from the bow. When the pressures of life around us give way, when we can have a moment of clarity, when the weight of gravity leaves us. Our dreams are what makes us great, what allows us to make the things that make us distinctly and uniquely human. Do not let the world hold you down, but rather let the weight lift off you, as you travel through the cosmos. It’s nine o’clock now. The arrow is an hour closer to launch. Its target is not a definitive, but rather a beacon. The first of many to soon launch and leave the cynical side of humanity behind. Our world is changing, yes, but I feel it will be a change for good. And no matter what it is in our lives we are dealing with, whatever pressing question has you down, look to the skies, smile even for a little bit, and dream. Dream of a better world, dream of peace. Dream of adventure and excitement and a whole universe ripe for the sight of our eyes. Hold on to what you must, let go of the pain’s life tries to throw at you. For you, me, all of us, are more than anything we’d ever expect. We’re an arrow of hope, ready for firing. We are all dreamers, ready for a better world. We are humans, and we can do great things.

So, if you must, get some sleep. Enjoy the world of the night as you prepare for tomorrow, for a new day to dawn. And when you wake up...remember to dream, for the first arrow has been shot.