Closing Thoughts

I'm about to reach the finish line of an extreme segment of my life. Thoughts of redefinition, purpose, planning, and identity have been constantly filling my mind. What comes next is a mystery. What I do with who I am is a secret slowly unraveling like a roll of ribbon taking me further and further away from what I knew and closer and closer to something I want to know. The future is calling to me as I walk blindly toward it like looking into a summer setting sun. The future is bright and I'm not sure what to see in it, but I like what I see. I don't know who I am going to be but I know who I am now. Do I need to be different? Sure, there are things I would change. Who wouldn't? But who do I want to become? Who have I become? There is so much about identity that fluctuates, and yet there is also something about human identity that is solid and forever true. The fallenness of mankind gives us a good base layer. Unfortunately, this makes everyone have the identity of evil. But one has to wonder if this is true? Theologically, yes. Man is innately evil. Rousseau and Dryden would disagree and is there merit to this? I think we would all like to believe that there is hope in the hearts and minds of the beings we are to spend the rest of our known lives with, but truly, the fault of mankind is not in his heart, but in his soul. If we cannot fix the soul, there is no reason to try and fix the heart. The heart calls for the emotion, the stomach for passion, and the mind for reason, but the soul is an altogether different entity. The soul calls for justice, virtue, goodness, and truth. These things cannot be felt. They cannot be passioned. They cannot be reasoned. To find justice, virtue, goodness, and truth is the eternal quest of the human aura. If this is our identity, why do we try to change? Why do we search for pleasure? Is there something innately painful in searching for what is truly beautiful? Will we ever find it?