& Keep Marching
The month we’re
ushering in, March, gets its name from Mars, the Roman god of war. The Roman
calendar actually began with the month of March. Leave it to the Romans, those
talented empire builders, to start off with war.
It is the pronunciation
in English that gives it an added feel. MARCH, as in to march, evokes movement.
Not just any movement, but the rhythmic kind that propels forward.
And this we must
do. Walking backwards is something we do when we reminisce, delve into history
and read fiction set in past eras. It’s a mental glide backwards, something
that deepens understanding and cements ownership of acquired emotions.
On the level of
action, the single most important thing to do is to bravely march forward, open
to the unknown. Storytellers attempt to unveil the future with utopic and dystopic
stories, but those are just attempts to quell the fear of what the next steps
hold.
As it turns out, these
stories are mostly unsuccessful as future times bear out. Sure, some futuristic
stories turned out to have prescience. So have some religious prophecies. But
most did not. We just forgot about the majority that didn’t, and kept marching.
Which is my order
to self today, as the first of March happens to also be my birthday: get up and
march.
