The Biggest Burden, Mr. Gore, But still we ask...

Try as we as may, we can never quite get there.  Try as we may, we can never imagine, never, what it is truly like to be another person.  We can never know what it's like to wake up one morning and feel their feelings, live their lives, experience their experiences past and present.  We can never know their deepest secrets or joys or hurts.  We can never know all these things, not even when that person is a public persona, larger than life.  We can't know what drives them, be it ambition or a deep desire to make a difference in a world that desperately needs changing.  We can't know in spite of having observed that person for years and we can't know even when that person has spent his entire life in service to others.

We can only see what we see and in the case of Al Gore we see someone who has inspired so many of us beyond our wildest dreams.  Of this man, we ask much.  We ask him humbly to take on the biggest burden of all.

Contemplate, if you will, for a moment, the gravity of what we ask.  Much has been done that must be somehow undone.  Damage.  Real damage to this world and to our fellow man.  It seems such a daunting task as to be almost impossible.  And though impossible, try to imagine what it must be like to be him.  Through all outward appearances his life seems to be everything a person could ask for.  He "has it all" so to speak.  Family, wealth, homes, happiness, a brilliant mind and the admiration of millions.  But yet, he seems to possess a quality of humility that few are capable of possessing.  It truly makes this diarist weep for what we have lost, as a country and as a planet.  The world took a bad turn on that fateful day in 2000 and people have paid, some with their very lives.  And here we are, like children with a broken toy, tears streaming as we hold it up.  "Fix it please".

Yes, of Al Gore we ask much.  Perhaps history may show that it will turn out to be one of the biggest burdens any president has ever had to carry.  There were men capable of it in the past.  Roosevelt comes to mind and also Abraham Lincoln.  Though mistakes are always, always made, in those cases the greater good triumphed in the end.  They arose to the challenge and in both cases, it cost them dearly.  Their lives both ended while still serving as president.

This diary has a purpose and hopefully that purpose is this.  In the hope that somehow Al Gore is reading this, may he please know that though we ask that he take on this great burden, we here are very much aware of the gravity of what we ask.  We are very much aware of the sacrifice we ask of him and his family.  We would do our best sir to pick up this burden along with you.  We vow it sir!