A blind sentinel

The term "blind sentinel" brings an image to my mind as do many of these titles and metaphors I post with. In my mind the sentinel is a titan of sorts, though maybe not in size. A defender of a cause. A keeper of something worthy. Wise and unyielding. Confident and effective. To couple "blind" with such qualities raises a question of capability and usefulness doesn't it? To be such a thing, blind, is to have certain traits be defeated or utterly removed. (It doesn’t have to mean so, but often does imply it.) So then what am I getting at with all this?

Sometimes I feel like the blind sentinel. Charged with protecting something. An ideal or a person. Sometimes even protecting myself, but no matter how I count my pluses I cannot shake my minuses. In my mind this "blind sentinel" figure is strong, but not impervious. Unyielding in his determination, but imperfect in execution. Passionate of his purpose, but easily distracted. The term sentinel and it's uses are very familiar to me having grown up immersed in comics. The difference is in the details here though. These creations did not face what we as people face. Many were machines and as such faced little but what their programming allowed. Those that were not machines faced human issues, but were always handed relatively clear choices and always found timely reasoning or motivation. We do not have this luxury as real people. Not always and not often.

And so, far removed from the heroes of my minds eye, we stand with shaky legs and week knees for our causes. At our best we are children with grand hopes and even more grand imaginations. We fancy ourselves as more than what we are and doing more than we can. Sounds a bit depressing actually, but I don't mean it to be. We are simply what we are...confused yet hopeful, but we are all blind sentinels my friends. We have all taken up a cause of importance, at least to us, and been less successful than we would have liked. Maybe we failed to protect someone from another person or even themselves. Maybe we tried to stand for something and came up lacking in ability or desire or focus. Maybe we wanted to uphold a quality or value for someone or something and could not. Maybe we simply never stood for or protected anything at all, in doing so have stood useless while needs abound.

In any case, even with the occasional victory, we are all capable of being a sentinel of something. Flawed and quirky, but none the less able to be a guardian of something good. A protector of something unable to protect itself. Qualities of old days lost to new ones...