Of apples and innocence
Michelline Nawatises
In the beginning, Adam and Eve were the blissful prisoners of their own ignorance - lazy as butterflies, slumbering in warm cocoons. The absence of truth is the victory of peace, and all was eternally well in the Garden of Eden.
Our own Garden of Eden was our innocence, our belief in the possibilities of the future.
Our bliss lay in the simplicity of shelter from the demons of generations past. Our apple trees grew slowly from seeds rooted in calm, though the fruits they would bear were to blossom overnight. Every child is born beneath the same golden trees of Eden… but what is our apple?
What is today’s symbol of our epic fall from grace? What is today’s forbidden fruit? When do the golden leaves fall from our trees?
Sex, drugs, and rock and roll were the vices of choice for generations past, but I would like to believe our generation is capable of outdoing the best.
We have taken the forbidden fruit and pumped it up with growth hormones, we’ve intensified our sins, as the apples fall from electronically-charged trees blossoming in knowledge that travel at the speed of light.
The added element of our generation’s forbidden fruit is instant gratification. The ripe, sweet taste of fast-forward will make you a believer at first bite. Our generation does not believe in the pause button, we race through every seemingly superfluous scene until the credits start rolling. Centuries of others have been taught the beauty of patience; for thousands of years our religions have preached the delay of indulgence, but we are ripping out the tales of redemption from our Bibles and burning our bedtime storybooks.
We are the generation that will pay N$150 for a pair of jeans conveniently pre-destroyed for us. We thrive on this corruption. We give ourselves to the streets. We depend not upon morals or convictions, but upon the white cords that connect us to the wafer-thin devices blocking out everyone and everything around us.
We are constantly plugged into the consumerist mantra, addicted to the ability to drown out our thoughts with the desire for more.
In never being content, in always craving the bigger and the better, we are prepared to meet true deficiencies with diverted eyes. These vices are our battle gear. Even so, we lose the war. We are all-too aware of our premature corruption. The forbidden fruits fail to fill our empty stomachs.
God was betrayed. He expelled the two lovers from their garden and forbade them from ever returning. Eve and Adam were cold and lost and confused by the world around them. This was a world of anger and desire, a world which they knew nothing of, having been cradled at the breast of innocence for so long. But God’s decisions are final - for all time, mankind was to live and die in this savage jungle.
Who is to criticise our generation for falling prey to the same temptations that shifted mankind to the edge and brought us to the fall from grace? Are we to blame for our eager hunger? We are living in a new era of crisis, the battle between preparation for the future and living in the present.
Whereas Eve chose to give into the serpent, perhaps we have been bitten with the desire for knowledge, because we have had good and evil thrust upon us.
Our lives are merely side-effects of past generations’ revolutions. We are not fighting these wars, we are watching them - a television without a remote control, the one scene that we cannot fast-forward.
So we choose to be aware. We choose corruption over innocence; we choose throbbing heartbeats over deep slumber.
We have had the pacifiers ripped from our lips, can you blame us for screaming? Our generation has sat back and watched confused, as buildings have burned and oceans have raged. Blame it on the serpent, but this generation has bitten into the forbidden fruit willingly. We have seen both sides of blessing and have chosen the road of the demons. Innocence has never meant more than ignorance, and for once, a generation is handing itself over to temptation without a fight. These apple trees are dying, and so are we. Let us rip the forbidden fruits from fallen branches… let’s die wise.
In the beginning, Adam and Eve were the blissful prisoners of their own ignorance - lazy as butterflies, slumbering in warm cocoons. The absence of truth is the victory of peace, and all was eternally well in the Garden of Eden.
Our own Garden of Eden was our innocence, our belief in the possibilities of the future.
Our bliss lay in the simplicity of shelter from the demons of generations past. Our apple trees grew slowly from seeds rooted in calm, though the fruits they would bear were to blossom overnight. Every child is born beneath the same golden trees of Eden… but what is our apple?
What is today’s symbol of our epic fall from grace? What is today’s forbidden fruit? When do the golden leaves fall from our trees?
Sex, drugs, and rock and roll were the vices of choice for generations past, but I would like to believe our generation is capable of outdoing the best.
We have taken the forbidden fruit and pumped it up with growth hormones, we’ve intensified our sins, as the apples fall from electronically-charged trees blossoming in knowledge that travel at the speed of light.
The added element of our generation’s forbidden fruit is instant gratification. The ripe, sweet taste of fast-forward will make you a believer at first bite. Our generation does not believe in the pause button, we race through every seemingly superfluous scene until the credits start rolling. Centuries of others have been taught the beauty of patience; for thousands of years our religions have preached the delay of indulgence, but we are ripping out the tales of redemption from our Bibles and burning our bedtime storybooks.
We are the generation that will pay N$150 for a pair of jeans conveniently pre-destroyed for us. We thrive on this corruption. We give ourselves to the streets. We depend not upon morals or convictions, but upon the white cords that connect us to the wafer-thin devices blocking out everyone and everything around us.
We are constantly plugged into the consumerist mantra, addicted to the ability to drown out our thoughts with the desire for more.
In never being content, in always craving the bigger and the better, we are prepared to meet true deficiencies with diverted eyes. These vices are our battle gear. Even so, we lose the war. We are all-too aware of our premature corruption. The forbidden fruits fail to fill our empty stomachs.
God was betrayed. He expelled the two lovers from their garden and forbade them from ever returning. Eve and Adam were cold and lost and confused by the world around them. This was a world of anger and desire, a world which they knew nothing of, having been cradled at the breast of innocence for so long. But God’s decisions are final - for all time, mankind was to live and die in this savage jungle.
Who is to criticise our generation for falling prey to the same temptations that shifted mankind to the edge and brought us to the fall from grace? Are we to blame for our eager hunger? We are living in a new era of crisis, the battle between preparation for the future and living in the present.
Whereas Eve chose to give into the serpent, perhaps we have been bitten with the desire for knowledge, because we have had good and evil thrust upon us.
Our lives are merely side-effects of past generations’ revolutions. We are not fighting these wars, we are watching them - a television without a remote control, the one scene that we cannot fast-forward.
So we choose to be aware. We choose corruption over innocence; we choose throbbing heartbeats over deep slumber.
We have had the pacifiers ripped from our lips, can you blame us for screaming? Our generation has sat back and watched confused, as buildings have burned and oceans have raged. Blame it on the serpent, but this generation has bitten into the forbidden fruit willingly. We have seen both sides of blessing and have chosen the road of the demons. Innocence has never meant more than ignorance, and for once, a generation is handing itself over to temptation without a fight. These apple trees are dying, and so are we. Let us rip the forbidden fruits from fallen branches… let’s die wise.
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