Open Notepad: Recollections, rants, and commentary

Commentary - Ronin; We Alone, Stand Together

/ˈrōnən/nounhistorical

" 浪人"  

  "he who drifts/wanders"

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We Alone, Stand Together. 

We few, we good few.

We band of brothers, sons, husbands, lovers.

We shed our blood, or prepare to do so.

Countless days, nights, as we hack the books, hack the grades.

We destroy our bodies, meld it like wet clay, and forge it again to make us something bigger. 

What is the Ronin, and why is it so important to bring the idea of the ronin up? Because for me, the Ronin is a realization. It is an idea. 

A ronin historically was a wandering warrior, or someone who honestly, if you boiled it down, was someone disillusioned after dedicating their lives to an idea, only to find abandonment to the ideal, or a world who simply, doesn't care.

For me, the Ronin is the idea of the self, in a ever changing generation, and something that I have felt for quite some time, but realize, something I embrace to carry myself forward.

The ronin is the spirit of finding. The struggle, the growth. The realization that yes, you are alone.

Yes something has undermined in your life, or you realize, that you are detached from someone, something, or some ideal.

Or, just simply, that it is not part of who you are, and realize effort is naught, or you come into a world where all you have sacrifice, or continue to sacrifice, and it is all come to some moment is waved away. 

This can come from many sources.

From being part of some service, or profession, and leaving that to pursue something, or something in your life has shifted causing you to steer away from it. 

This can come from a passion, that has died out. Or some lingering nostalgia of some day you can't return. Like someone broken, or traumatic, that leaves them stumbling away, and closing away it to gather to dust. 

This can come from someone significant in your life, who leaves your life, and you feel that gaping hole that lingers and resides as you realized all the time you commit and all the time you apply to the relationship and effort, has gone away, leaving you alone. 

So you become Ronin. So you become empty. You feel empty, you stumble around, and wonder where do I go again? What do I do?

Where do I go, in a society that perhaps accept me for who I am, or what do I do with this emptiness?

That is something you must determine for yourself.

But always remember, a ronin is a warrior. A master-less warrior yes, but a warrior in every fiber of the being.

You are still a warrior, alive. 

You still have these experiences, this struggle, this idea inside you, and carry you. This energy to remain alive and move on. 

Find yourself, gather the energy, and dedicate to something more, or something else. Gather that energy with being positive, and moving on, into this world. 

It is absolutely difficult, and the brutalities of it will test you. But you are a ronin. 

Remember what you were, remember how that felt with that passion, and drive on with it always.

If you have a network who has endured alongside you, and understand, remember, that you will always have that network.

We alone, stand together.

We ronin, alone in this world we struggle and understand, and live, stand together.

We will not falter.