JUST SIGN HERE

I was once faced with an extremely difficult choice. A document lay in front of me, one that was immense in scale with immeasurable changes to the everyday lives of people around the globe. It wasn’t all smiles and rainbows. What I was about to sign would make life hard for a while. But if I didn’t sign it, though life would be easier short term it would be worse in the long run.

It took me a long time to decide whether or not to sign that paper. I wanted to be sure. I didn’t want unnecessary blood on my hands, though I knew there would be whichever choice I made. And so the document was opened by the legal witness, and she marked the sheet before handing me the pen. I couldn’t help but stop for a second. I’d never really thought about that small action before.

She’d put an X on the line that she wanted my signature on.

It got me thinking further about our situation, X. If the line is the world we live in and the life we lead, then my signature is the impact I make in this world. I leave my mark through making tough decisions that most people couldn’t shoulder the responsibility of. My imprint makes history every time I leave it.

But the “X”?

The “X” is just the waypoint. The X will always be right next to the impact, but it will never make its own impact. The X will always be there in the thick of things, true, but the X doesn’t make its own decisions, or choose its own path.

The X is told where to be. The X is forced to toe the party line and wait for my signature to break it.

X, you know I’m grateful for your physical contribution to Imperium’s cause, but the truth is you are shackled by the line of life, whereas I swoop and soar like the loops of my signature around that line, treating it like my plaything.

The world needs “X”s. The world needs people who follow instead of lead, who stand by and wait for bigger men to make the big decisions, make the money, make the technology.

But each time I leave my mark on another of life’s lines, know this. You’ll be there once again, but you never change. A rudimentary scribble on the fabric of life, with no meaning and no history. The “X” doesn’t know where it came from either, just that it is here now, doing what people tell it to and being what people want it to be.

We pretend you have a choice X, but all you’ve done since Gouldern told you to make your own decision and join us is do exactly what we wanted you to do all along.

So watch, as again this week I write my name in the history books of OSW, whilst you’re just there for the ride once more. No name, no history, no purpose, other than watching where I go, in awe of those swoops and soars again.

Vote Whitlock.