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The Cosmonaut - Fall On Your Sword

Living in modernity is like living in a box. Our lives, and everything we do in our daily lives, revolve around boxes now. Am I not typing into a box at this very moment? Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state, and an ambition to obliterate God from all Modern Thinking, had never happened, or at least had never developed to the horrific degree that it has. The infatuation with celebrities, and the obsession with technology is simply unavoidable in modern culture. Exploitation rampages through all forms of entertainment, and it is unheard of (with the exception of rare cases) to be capable of surviving without technological dependency. Political democrazy, femininity, and many other cultural values are entirely skewed and perverted, modern best-seller literature is soiled in erotic portrayals of love and beauty, and reality and purpose in meaningless watered-down fiction. If one puts the question "What is Truth?" (yes, with a capital T) to a group of secular college students, your average young American will most likely reply with his belief that truth is relative. Let's take our regular modern girl, growing up in America in the twenty-first century. Her character is developed in a whirlwind of pre-puberty boyfriend relationships, a broken family, Lady Gaga infatuation, schoolmate peer pressure, narcotics, iPods, Facebook, Twitter, exploitation, and a love-starved culture demanding her to conform to it's erotic perversion of Beauty. Let's look at a few icons, or idols, within the past couple centuries. We've got Monroe, Madonna, Britney, Gaga, Paris Hilton, Bundchen, and Miley. What do they all have in common? Fashion, abused talent, immorality, and chiefly: careers in personal erotic exploitation. Where is the fulfillment in life? I just don't get it. In Modernity, there is no pursuit of an eternity. Our culture pushes for pleasure, and partaking in the moment, the here and now. No wonder the majority of America dives into drugs (legal and non-legal) and alcohol, searching for more feeling, more meaning in life. There are no healthy role models, healthy outlets towards Reality. Now let's jump back to within the past several hundred years. The leading women (fictional and non-fictional) were the heroines of virtue, the stronghold towers of femininity: Penelope, Lady of Shallot, Jane Eyre, Lady Marian, Jeanne d'Arc, Galadriel, Anne Elliot, Elizabeth Bennet, Rebecca the Jewess, Lady Rowena... etc. etc. I hope that someday younger generations will turn back to ancient literature, and find meaning within these beautiful characters. Perhaps more youth will discover significance and principle behind the chivalric ideal of womanhood: she who is fair, chaste, virtuous, and loyal to Truth. 

She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleam'd upon my sight;
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;
Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly plann'd,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.    

-Wordsworth