The Mark of Zorro

by Richard Kendall

When I was about nine years old I used to watch a television series called The Mark of Zorro. It was based upon a silent motion picture released in 1920. Zorro was a swashbuckling swordsman who left his special mark, a “Z,” carved upon the face of each evildoer he defeated. Although I once took fencing lessons, the desire to carve a Z, or any other letter for that matter upon the face of another never rose up within me. But what did rise up within me was a desire to leave my own special mark upon the world. During class one evening I spoke of this need to feel that my presence on earth had a purpose beyond mere survival. Seth came through, responding to my comments and said the following:

Now, Your being is important! The fact that you are, my friend, impresses the universe, and that impression is never lost; that impression lives, in your terms, though time itself is forgotten and dies. Your being, as it is, is important, and whatever you do, it is not trivial. When you realize that your being is important, then you will realize that by being yourself, you will do, in your terms, important things you cannot do otherwise.

I didn’t doubt the wisdom within Seth’s words, but “impressive” was not how I felt about myself at the time.

In my early teens I saw myself as basically irrelevant. In response to such feelings I tried to distinguish myself from others through various forms of exaggerated behavior. While such behavior often did result in my standing out from the crowd, what it did not do was eliminate my feelings of inadequacy. As I got older, continuing to act out in such a fashion only served to make me look foolish. I then sought confirmation of my worth through other avenues; in the eyes of lovers; in praise from my parents; in approval from my peers; but none of those approaches worked either. So I tried still another tack. I set goals for myself that if achieved would surely (so I thought) bring me that sense of self-approval I so desperately wanted. But I set the bar so high, demanded so much of myself, that falling short was a foregone conclusion. The resulting “failures” then led to more rounds of self-recrimination, reinforcing the original belief that my being didn’t measure up, and was of little consequence. Over the years I knocked on a thousand different doors in search of this elusive creature called self-worth, until I accepted the fact that only by looking within would I find the answers to this dilemma. As I did look within I found a number of programs running counter to the idea that my being was important. Deleting those corrupted files was not going to be as easy as clicking the buttons on a mouse. If I wanted to create a new reality for myself, then a new model was going to have to be to be put into place.

I would have to set my compass in sync with the spontaneous rhythms of my being, and not allow myself to be blown off course by the prevailing winds of custom or tradition. Choices would have to be made in accordance with my natural inclinations, not looking over my shoulder at what others might think or say about the decisions I would be making. Impulses would need to be followed despite the fact I could not place them within the provinces of accepted logic, or defend them with arguments based upon sound reasoning. My opinions were going to have to be my own, not altered to conform to what was deemed to be normal or proper. And as vast as the oceans of earth and space might be, I needed to realize that the very fact I existed (as Seth said) made an impression upon the universe, and nothing I did was ever meaningless. These concepts had to become more than theory; they had to become firmly fixed within the deepest recesses of my psyche, pushing out all ideas to the contrary. Society could also play its part, broadcasting new messages to replace old gloomy adages that spoke of sin and penance and the ignoble nature of man.

“Your Being Is Important” should be written across the blackboards of every school in every country, with gold stars being given out to all students caught inscribing those words on the side of a bathroom wall. “Your Being Is Important” should be painted in big bright letters on billboards alongside every highway, and flashing from neon signs above the streets of every major city. “Your Being Is Important” should be tattooed in the brain, spreading like wildfire to all the cells of body and mind, and whispered in the ears of every child from the moment they are born. “Your Being Is Important” should be shouted from the rooftops of every shack, shanty, outhouse, whorehouse, courthouse, and jailhouse across the globe, until the meaning within those words become indelibly etched within the mass consciousness of our world.

There are those who walk this earth in shadow. They do not feel the warmth of the sun, nor will they ever know the comfort of warm arms wrapped around them on a cold wintry night. There are those who draw breath, but for all intents and purposes have fallen off the face of the earth. There are those who have forgotten how to love, with empty windows in their heart where none look in and none look out. Every person you will ever meet or gaze upon, whether they sit on top of a throne or wake up every day mired in their own filth, is a living mosaic that forms an integral part of the fabric of this universe. EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THIS EARTH is of equal importance; and every thought they think is like a star illuminating the night sky, creating roads of light for all of us to walk upon.

There can be no caste system when it comes to evaluating the worth of another human being. Don’t create one for yourself. Your being is important… and so is mine! Let’s celebrate. My place or yours?