I did not choose to exist
I did not chose to be born
I did not choose to be born a helpless, fragile and completely dependent baby
I did not choose to be born into the age of the Anthropocene
I did not choose to be born as result of a social process
I did not choose to be born through a couple that became my parents
I did not choose to be born through a bloody painful process my mother had to endure
I did not choose to be born black
I did not choose to be born into a socio-ecological system
I did not choose to be born into the Venda culture of South Africa
I did not choose to be born into a polymorphic community of others
I did not choose to be born into a universe of billions and billions of holons
I did not choose to be born into a universe in which everything I need to live has been provided for
I did not choose to be born into an interconnected and interdependent reality
But once I was born I realized
That I was born with the awesome and magnificent power to choose
That I was born to choose between the opiate path of co-existence
or the harmful path of slow death
That I was born to choose life, to live in community and interdependence
what I now know is the paragon and epitome of existence that produces the serotonin and oxytocin of life
That I was born to choose to cherish and celebrate interconnectedness and the communion of all things
Bound in an eternal bond of the one undivided reality
Can you here me? I have chosen the way of becoming a sustainable and symbiotic self
In a new epoch and an emerging age of the symbiocene
What are you going to do with this awesome power to choose that you have?
Completed on the 23rd of September 2016
By Mashudu Ramano