If I was goddess of creation, I would have made humans neutral, not perfect or imperfect either. I would have made them untwisted, colorless, yes very bland. 

I would have been content without their magical survival of hardship and their heroic sacrifices to prove to the rest of creation, that the human spirit is beautiful. 

I would be ok with humans of no imagination too, because the less of that, the more bland progress would be. And there would be no plastic progress, because other than the green trees, the blue sky and the white clouds, I would not expect anything of faded color from humanity. 

In that somewhat strange world, where I am posing as a goddess, people would not be so sensitive about the color of their skin, the variety of their foods, their brick or hut-like homes, their dress codes and over or under hair do’s, their mighty gods; yes sir and madam reader, their ways of life. 

Fine art and gentle manners aside, the courts would be almost irrelevant too. Because when people are as open as a book, why would we need anyone to explain their hidden agendas, their natural desire to survive as the fittest species, their criminal thoughts? 

We would know immediately who was lying through their teeth, which man was only a comedian, and what earnest man needs to go home to his family. It would save the courts a lot of money, and the tax payers their dues, provided of course there is tax to be made too. 

But I am as you, very human, very imperfect and a lover of the magical human spirit. In my secret hours of uncertainty, I yearn as a poet would for superpowers to read the minds of cruelty. I want to reach deep into the senseless carelessness of human beings, the things that make them leap with joy or wail in their own suffering. Within such chaos, we can make sense of the loneliness in the tragic fall of the human spirit. 

I know that as an imperfect human being, we can lose our better selves at judging others, at selfish motives, at ignorance. Yet knowing deeper things about the human spirit, will birth in the soiled heart the seed of understanding. 

Understanding flourishes the human spirit with ideas. Understanding is like the sun’s touch on the rose, a reminder, that the soul of man, is his own reality. By that, the man who once settled into being a caterpillar finds his end in a butterfly. The wings of life are created from life’s own tragedy. 

So, if you look at the world around us objectively and with the yearning eyes of a poet, this is a great time to start training to become superheroes. Since superheroes are made of psychic powers and strengths of bolted fire, we have all the disarray, the degradation and the corruptive things in our world as humans, to learn from. Each of us, especially those who are suffering, would be empowered with superhero instincts in no time at all. 

But our little lost paradise is always full of funny. Have you seen the strange man wearing the tight red costume on the streets of Apia? The small goddess in me giggled silly at the sight of him on our daily paper. But I am a simple woman. I adore funny things most of all. 

So speaking of amoral degradation, red costumes and expensive courts, let’s not forget the prayers that leave our murmuring lips to find order in our own police station. We suffer along with them in their plight of chaotic twists and unresolved mysteries. 

I hope that when they sleep at night, that they are reminded of the man in the red costume, the poor children on the streets and the fretting earnest people for the safety of our homes, our towns and our villages. 

The man in the red costume, the children on the streets, as well as all of us, may be lost from the outset of the way life should be, but it seems, the paradise place we are living in is more lost than we.