A Beginning

          I have begun to record these events because I have become convinced that they are to occur only so that I may record them. I feel that I must give some notion of the motivation for this manuscript at the outset, though it will, in time, be made evident, as it has been to myself. A change has begun in my soul, a change that is clear in origin, but unclear in meaning. This account will only be valuable insofar as it is free of self-deceit, of fibs or half-truths for sake of appearances. Am I capable of it? If the honesty is to begin here I must admit a certain habit, a certain inclination of mine, to see only my better half… or at least a little less of my worse… At moments of extreme temptation, I convince myself that my sin is not really a sin, that no harm will really come of my actions, and that I am not really compromising my integrity. If I snatch just one of those twenty dollar bills from my friends wallet, he will surely not notice. And it would make things easier on me, me a virtuous man. In fact, really I am owed this ten dollars, and much more beyond that, but I will settle for this twenty dollars because such is my virtue. I suffer so that another may prosper. No, but really that is what I myself, out of pride, come to believe in my mind, even though I do admire that kind of noble and humble character, and even though I believe it to be the only life able to redeem man’s sins. That is the beauty of the impermanence of each moment, the sin is not irreparable; life is transient so that I can atone for my sins, my own and others’.
          What is my sin? Above all else, my sin is pride, a pride that convinces me how wonderful I am and how much the whole world owes me for my wonderfulness, even though in my heart I know this is a lie. And from my pride come all my other sins, for a proud man does not see himself as committing any sin at all. Rather, to a proud man, all others are committing wrongs against him, and therefore any wrongs committed on the part of the proud man are justified.
          Like all men of our epoch, my sin is also indifference. Simply put, in a world inhabited by a figure approaching seven billion, how significant can my little sin, committed far from the movers and motivators of our precious civilization, certainly harming not one other soul, be? My little sin would not account for one blade of grass in a field of ten thousand acres, and already that field has grown wild and out of control, for it has not been tended to for centuries, so what would it matter to plant my little sin in that field, too? Surely my sin cannot even constitute a single blade of grass next to giant oaks and redwoods, which show their age and magnitude in the endless rings of their trunks. This, too, is how I and every other man regard our own sins, such is the consuming power of indifference.
          And so, as is my entire being, my story is born of sin.