Struggling to make history

(A certain old Cretan Captain, now a shepherd received a citation inscribed on a parchment in the red and black letters, congratulating him on his acts of bravery and declaring him a hero)

“What is the Paper?” He asked the messenger with irritation.
“Did my sheep get into somebody’s Wheatfield again? Do I have to pay damages?”

The messenger unrolled the citation joyfully and read it aloud.
“ put it in ordinary language so I can understand. What does it mean?”

“ It means you are a hero. Your nation sends you this citation so you can frame it for your children”
The captain extended his huge paw.
“give it here”
Seizing the parchment, he ripped it in shreds and threw it into the fire beneath a caldron of boiling milk.

“Go and tell them I didn’t fight to receive a piece of paper. I fought to make history”

(Liberty: Report to Greco, Nikos Kazantzakis)

Sometimes we forget that we all struggle to make history,
for the convenience of piece of paper though it may be in the form of a currency, of a certificate!!!!

From the Reading Desk: Nikos Kazantzakis and the Divinely Despair

God is the most resplendent face of despair. ,
the most resplendent face of hope.
You are pushing me beyond hope and despair,
Grandfather, beyond all age-old frontiers.

Where?
I gaze around me,
I gaze inside me.
Virtue has gone mad, geometry and matter have gone mad.
The law-giving mind must come again to establish a new order, new laws.
The world must become a richer harmony

( Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco)