“We were made men and not angels in order that we may seek our happiness through the medium of this life.” - Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936). Tragic Sense of Life, 11, 1913, tr. J.E. Crawford Flitch, 1921

- An angel is a mental being, an ethereal being, a thing of the upper air. Angels, like devils, alight upon our shoulders and speak to us the secrets of the world, the orders and temptations of what we can, and should, do. Our conscious speaks to us with the voice of an angel, a voice full of logic and understanding, love and hope, which cries and weeps at the ruin of the world. We we to follow such a voice, to follow such advice, then surely we would be better people, more moral and more in tune with the living force. But we are not angels, and within us the spirit resides along with the beast, fighting and playing together as the days turn. We are not happy to always be playing in the mire, full of enjoyable physical sensations and fulfilled selfish needs, and neither are we happy to be always playing in the clean air, with no obstructions and no contrary winds. We are both the fire and the smoke, the laughter and the choke. It is said that you do not know what you have until it is gone, and that sorrows open up spaces in the heart for joy - in this way, to live is also to die. We are mortal, and we marry maids as well as mantels. 

Abandon thy self at your peril, for few are those who can truly find happiness only on one side of the line. Humans morph and bend, renew and redeem, change and become more than they seem. The horrible fact about angels is that they are complete, and happy, and whole. Their song is beautiful, but also stale - it is human beings who dare to dream, and who have an eternal spark within them gleam, in the eyes, through the words, by the actions - It is human beings who live in time, who write in rhyme, and who cry in crime. We were not made to be rent apart, self from self, but rather made to hold all ourselves together in our heart. Thus do we form and temper the heroic art, that once made a great, grand, ark to sail across the sea, to mountain top, there to stop and drop once more to the great land whereupon we roam, not brought to, but seeking a home. A hearth-fire we make for ourselves, all the more worthy because of that. This is the happiness and pride of man, that we do not find, but make. We vote not with our eyes, but with our feet, seeking happiness past morthal vale, over mordor’s walls, beyond hand of tyrant - father, mother, and brother to us, the angels accompany but do not sway us from our way. We are ourselves, will they or nay. 

Human, human, human, happy humans at last, we hope. Happy in life, not death, as flesh, not bone. We are as we were born, but may become something more. Something that does not always rhyme, does not always move in good time, and often fails when it seeks to find, but never stops trying. There is time enough after death, and we are living yet. So, enjoy your life, live your life, for what will come will come, but the great gift, what is now, will never come again. 

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