When the World Dares You

- PEN GOD -

“To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is
true for all men, that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal
sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, and our first thought is rendered back
to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment.”

If you have read or heard of these words, you would immediately and surely be
reminded of the most renowned author Ralph Waldo Emerson on his essay “On Self-
Reliance”, but if you have internalized these words, you will surely be reminded of yourself; of
the person you could become, or even of the person you could have been.

We, humans, as the highest form of living creature, are bestowed with a very special
skill – rationality. Assertion is one great way to abscond from mediocrity. Every individual is
given the mind that holds great ideas. Each of us is believed to be a potential genius and a
great thinker. However, many people have failed to notice the importance of asserting and
speaking out ideas. They chose to live in their caves unheard rather than to free themselves
out of the dark rim.

A man is ought to recognize waves of ideas flashing out his mind, and speak them. If
“with great powers come great responsibility”, then “with great minds come great ideas.” Gone
are those days that we left our ideas unrecognized and neglected. People have always been
living in irony. The irony of wanting to contribute something, but have chosen to live with
nothing; of longing to be recognized, but have done nothing; and of wanting to be heard have
spoken nothing - truly ironic a man is. Unknown to many, but to hold ideas and speak nothing,
means to be futile. What’s the worth of being rational if one does not speak what on his mind?
The common problem with the people is that no matter how they were taught to speak and live
ideas, still they chose to grasp ignorance, ignorance towards the society’s needs for their
minds. They have trashed a lot of conceivable ideas that could resolve many human and “in-
human” problems scattering above the surface, and, perhaps, could change the world for the
better. Remember that the dreadful disease in the society is never any of those health-related
illnesses, it is ignorance.

Plato, Moses, Milton, and other mind-titans have spoken, hence, they were heard. They
have contributed a paramount change to the world. We are bound with ideas. Let them not be
buried deep, deep down in vain. Take this for instance, one day you’ll just see someone being
highly recognized because of his great ideas that have contributed a lot to the society, ideas
which were yours. See! You just then lost your whip. In a world where only those who speak
are heard, being silent is not part of the options. F Sionel Jose on his article entitled “Why Are
We Shallow?” once said that “It is better to be silenced than to be silent.” The reasons why
some crimes are unsolved, is because people refuse to speak; and why life remains unaltered,
is because people refuse to be heard.

To speak ideas is to live with contribution. Believing that you don’t own something is a
dilemma between ignorance and futility, and a delusion of perfectly-drowned world. Look how
the world of those who speak with veracity and just have changed. Speak to be heard. Speak
to be recognized. Speak for change. Speak for your life. Speak for truth. Speak what you have
in mind. Fear not to be misunderstood. Many great people have been misunderstood,
Pythagoras, Luther, Copernicus, and Galileo. To be great is to be misunderstood. But, take a
look at the society now, it’s them who are the noble ones, it is them who have the great minds.
And, believe it or not, you’ll be soon one too, one way or another. So speak, the world dares
you.