Do you remember that scene from 300 where Emperor Xerxes’ messenger arrives to tell the Leonidas, King of Sparta to 
surrender? Remember how he rode in with brazen confidence, backed by the limitless power of the Persian empire? If Leonidas had thought logically they would have surrendered immediately. His tiny city state had no chance to stand up against the million man armies Xerxes commanded. But he did not surrender. He chucked out the logical. He abandoned inaction.
surrender? Remember how he rode in with brazen confidence, backed by the limitless power of the Persian empire? If Leonidas had thought logically they would have surrendered immediately. His tiny city state had no chance to stand up against the million man armies Xerxes commanded. But he did not surrender. He chucked out the logical. He abandoned inaction. Do you remember how the Messenger responded when he realized Leonidas wouldnt surrender? How his face twisted in terror as the power he trusted in failed to scare Sparta? In desperation he yells out: “This is Madness.” This isnt how its suppose to be. Sparta is small, its weak, its suppose to surrender.
I think the problems of the world are just like that Persian Empire. These problems feel unfixable. They overwhelm us. They debilitate us. We surrender before them. What do we do when we hear that 1 in 20 children are orphaned due to AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa? or that over a million women are sexual SLAVES throughout the world? or that communities are literally starving to death? We surrender. We hide. We try to put them out of our mind so we can go back to our day to day lives. We go to our day jobs and our entertainment and the million other things we do to fill our time.
Well I dont want to surrender. I know that its madness, that the rest of the world does not operate like this, but I also know that closing our eyes wont make these problems go away. So I stand here in the shoes of Leonidas and shout back at the World:
“MADNESS!?!?!?! THIS. IS. WORLD RACE.”
