What is it to be noble? Not in birth or through petty elevation, but in heart. Is there a place for it in this world of ours. Strip away the romanticising of all the ages of that blessed quality, and what is it truly? Is there worth in nobility when indignity is unrelenting and those few converse from towers so tall that empathy is hidden from them by the clouds below?
Cast your cynicism aside and appraise the term anew. Nobility is not some pretentious ideal lost to the feckless fancies of the mock chivalrous. Nobility is kindness unconditional and justice hard fought. It is stoic ideals and an uncompromising morality. It is a belief in others and a world of consequences outside your pretty head. It is protecting the weak. It is avoiding the sins of our fathers. It is whispering a word of comfort and shouting a word of defiance. It is a tender kiss on a lover's cheek.
When I was young I read books full of heroes. Heroes of circumstance. Such tall tales of people with extraordinary hearts thrust into adventures beyond all imagining. They were given a chance to prove their nobility, no matter who they were. In the crucible of the story, they were able to show their quality.
By the onslaught of time we are gifted with a choice. Do we see the world as it is presented to us in story books, or do we accept that circumstance is indiscriminate, people incomprehensible, and fate untenable? Do we live to show our quality, our nobility, or do we live as if to daily cast our actions into some abyss?
Do not sit by and despair in a hole of misery, or stand idly at a lofty pinnacle. Strive for nobility, and inspire it in others.
Be not afraid to be noble, for what else do we have.
