Sacrifice

Prompt 58: April 1, 2026

The Prompt:

The case for free-will can be simplified to two simple truths:

1. There is more than we can ever experience. 
2. Actions have consequences.

The space provided us in those two axioms gives us a wonderful, wide, world of adventure with which to live should we so choose–or not. Sacrifices are not consensual.  We hardly know the ramifications of our choices, let alone the consequences of behaviors we blindly perform. To study history is to explore sacrifices made by previous peoples (eagerly and unwittingly) and to understand the lasting effects on the present. It can be tempting to think linearly in a cause and effect relationship with the past, but nothing is so simple. Past, present, and future are all conceptually in flux based on a given narrative structure about reality.  

A few examples to consider:

1. holocaust (noun): a sacrifice completely consumed by fire; burnt offering.
   1. Zionism was a weak political force in the early 20th century until the Nazi and Soviet atrocities of the 1930s and 1940s.  The term of holocaust today has lost its religious connotation in regards to ancient burnt sacrifices, but when considered around the context of Israeli history, the term almost reveals a twisted joke (or an eschatological symbol).

2. Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school strike
   1. In preparation for the February 28th strike on Iran, the U.S. prioritized targets using artificial intelligence (hence the name) which mistakenly identified the elementary school in Minab as target.  Three tomahawk missiles destroyed the school in broad daylight killing over 170 civilians, many children. The global public is rightly ashamed by the mistake, yet there is hardly a resistance to creating AI gods, no matter how many lives are sacrificed for its training.

3. America: The Land of Opportunity
   1. Our nation’s most generous branding has marketed a dream in which many millions of disenfranchised people the world over are willing to leave their families, lives, and heritage to pioneer a new future for themselves and their kin. There is the obvious sacrifice each immigrant makes, but there is a broader sacrifice on the part of these united states that threatens political and cultural stability. This phenomenon has escalated with technologies that make travel and labor cheaper. 

We all make sacrifices. Anyone receiving this prompt has likely thought carefully about such things, yet we don’t always consider sacrifices made on our behalf. Political, technological, and social forces have agendas that we don’t have much power over.  Let us be cautious about our participation.

“All I maintain is that on this earth there are plagues and there are victims and it’s up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the plagues.”

– Albert Camus

The thread is open. Create boldly, and may the Spirit guide us all