There are only two things that matter the most in our world across ethos, civilizations and cultures. They are, as the great Captain Jack Sparrow said, “The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do.”

Accepting your past is something you can do. If you can’t there is no way to move forward. Forgetting your past is for the best, for other people consider it their divine calling to remind you of it. ‘Moving on’ is just a phrase. Nobody moves on. They live between the regrets of the past and the worries of the future. All of us do. This is the human condition, like hobbies that all of us have in common, but those we do not update as impressive Facebook stati.

We talk of freedom as though it is a providential life status. However, we are only bemoaning the social ills of our time. While some live a life of misery and trauma, those who voice the loudest are the lot who merely experience inconveniences. In the guilt of our privilege, we air grievances for the collective. The more we bemoan the social villains of our age, the more we feel we have done something productive to shovel off the historical injustice that was imposed upon cultural groups of the past galore.

In this white noise of kicking and screaming for the great continental shifting of cultural balance and the talk of equality, the only rules that matter are, as the great Captain said, what one can do and what one can’t do.

Please do what you can.

Much obliged, mate.