In honor of THE IDEALS that Bob Marley and many other greats stood for.... Society has proven quick to immortalize certain historical figures throughout the ages and propagate their characters as being infallible or unattainable. This, regardless of being intentional or not, portrays these 'icons' in a 'larger than life' like way which ultimately conflicts with what it is these individuals stood for in the first place, since, not only is it largely untrue, but also because it disempowers the common man and woman from rising to engage in the challenges formerly met by their predecessors. We tend to be comforted by the delusion that there are inborn 'super heroes' who know no 'sin', have been endowed with certain esoteric like leadership qualities foreign to the rest of us, and have been 'sent' to come save us while we can sit on our asses and do nothing, rather than the disturbingly realistic depiction of fragile human beings who have made many mistakes throughout their lives, and have endured great hardship, failure, and pain, as being the actual forces that help to bring about positive change in our world. This prevailing dogma is for several reasons, but mostly because the former frees us from responsibility while the latter suggests we could, in fact, do SOMETHING to change this dying and decaying world ourselves and by not doing something we may, in fact, be partly to blame for its INEXCUSABLE state. We celebrate these individuals internationally on 'special' occasions as if unwritten tradition. But we must be CLEAR about what it is EXACTLY we are celebrating, which is their image, itself being largely distorted and capitalized upon by big business, and not their timeless ideals, for which they worked so hard for — many LITERALLY sacrificing their lives to share them with us and help us see that ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE. We are quick to follow their social media images controlled by other human beings rather than their ACTUAL teachings and ideals, which one could justifiably conclude based on their efforts, they would have wanted instead. These people may be dead, but their teachings and their ideas, for which they DEDICATED their lives, continue to echo in eternity and are simply waiting for us to embody and further develop them. Rather than pledging loyalty and allegiance to their images, we MUST pledge loyalty and allegiance to the ideals of unity, equality, justice, freedom and Truth, which they stood so FIRMLY for. It is in this way that we honor their memory, NOT by obsessing over their public persona. — με το χρήστη Bornless Spirit και 2 ακόμη.