The Tale Begins

How does one begin? Where does one start?

I saw a book today that got me thinking, it was about Native American arts and crafts. I drew a parallel to it in my mind. This land was their land. People came in waves, chipping away at their land, the place the called home and the place to which they belonged. They claimed it because they felt they had the right to, as though they discovered it and could do no wrong. And now they're put on reservations in small portions of land, scattered, and still harassed from one side or another.

This is something I saw in myself too, and in several areas of my life. I've people trying to claim pieces of me, chipping away at who I am and saying that that piece is rightfully theirs just because and that I’ve no right to it or it the right to be me.

This happens too in an online game I play. There is a series, a world which I follow and whose spirit I've tried ever to preserve, and along come a bunch of upstarts laying hold to it, claiming that it's all theirs and that they should be in control, driving others who want and feel the same into corners, hiding in smaller and smaller areas.

How do we reclaim the ground lost?

I thought too about stones and gems. I used to think of myself as if a cut stone, each person shining a light of their own opinion on me, highlighting what they want to see and moving on. What stone then am I? Why is it that I keep getting overlooked and cast aside by so many, and yet have some still found what they see of value? Did they look harder? Know what they were seeing? What made that difference?

I’ve so many thoughts on my mind. I'm still searching for definition, still searching for answers.