declaration

She was a simpleton. She laughed and made others laugh around her. Bending over backwards to help folks, remembering to be polite, greet and help when asked and most of the times even when not asked. It came naturally to her these things. Part of conditioning and well, the DNA that one couldn’t get rid of despite a good scrub-down.

With a few special folks, she’d go the extra length. Their reaction didn’t matter. It was her heart she followed. She felt a belonging, a bond. Like one does with family. Family is almost always treated differently than the rest of the world, even if you’d rather not live with them, they still shared a kinship. He wasn’t family. Yet she had felt that kinship. Only she did. Something that she realized after the ship had sailed.

It hit her strong, it hit her hard and it her well.

It was July 4th and the History channel was showing a documentary. The words called out to her.

The very essence of her life as her father had raised her.

“Mistrust before you trust. The world is a selfish, hard place for a young girl like you to grow up alone and unprotected. I won’t be around forever, you’re going to have to build those walls and moats and allow access only after the person’s proved himself worthy of it.”

The words “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” rang in loud and clear.

She had worked hard and long to reach the point she was in life. The nicety would always be there, it was hers and no one could take that from her, but gears she had to shift accordingly. She decided she had the right to happiness. To the pursuit of happiness. The freedom to pursue that happiness. The life that she lived to be free to pursue the happiness that she deserved and had a right to.

For now, she had to survive. And she had to do it all by herself.

Businesses and people around her, they were sinking. The ones who survived were the ones who put their needs ahead of the rest. It was a dog eat dog world. Heck, even in the flights one was asked to put the oxygen mask on before turning to help the co-passenger or their own child. No, their selfless story didn’t cut it in the present revelation.

Corporations or people, there was just one thing that was needed to survive. Who else could say it better than Gordon Gekko

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed — for lack of a better word — is good.

Greed is right.

Greed works.

Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind.

And greed — you mark my words — will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

She declared “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness; and no matter the kind of jungle am thrust into, I’ll survive and I will live long, free and happy to tell the tale.”