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(2)
My desire for solitude is, perhaps, somewhat excessive. But it
is not, I think, altogether unreasonable. I suppose I must
admit to being something of a misanthrope: I have a distrust of the
human race that runs deep. As individuals I find humans to be
frequently honest, intelligent, and kind, but as a species I think we
remain too self-interested, too self-serving, to make good on our presumed
role as the assigned inheritors of the earth. Our lust for power,
our assumption of a degree of wisdom we have not necessarily yet attained,
the self-righteousness of our vanity and the greediness of our pride, are
making a wreckage of all that complex and delicately arrayed splendor once
everywhere to be found in the natural world.
I don't know that there's much wisdom to be shown in remarking
generally upon the age in which I live. It would probably be
wiser of me to follow common practice and acknowledge that it's
only the future which can give any true perspective, any real hope of
understanding, to the past. The human condition is such that our
ability to perceive who and what we are, as well as who and what we may
become, remains inextricably interwoven with the times in which we live:
I can't pretend to be objective and probably shouldn't set myself up as
judge. Yet it seems to me impossible to deny that we are less able
now than ever before to state with any certainty what hope there is for
tomorrow. Having suffered during the course of recent history two
World Wars, the Holocaust, social and political revolutions too numerous
to count, the threat of nuclear devastation, the increasingly frantic pace
of our technological advancements, and pollution of such magnitude that
for nature, this is already a time of devastation, it's difficult not
to fall prey to the belief that we are ushering in an era of potentially
very bleak consequences. "What the hell happened?" may
well turn out to be the only question left for future generations
to ask.
We live, it seems to me, in an increasingly caustic world, a world in
which corruption has become so all pervasive as to seem like an inescapable
(and therefore acceptable) condition of our existence, our resignation in
the face of it an unavoidable (and therefore blameless) response.
This is a world in which the most flagrant waste of money and resources
exists side by side with whole populations of people living in the
most wretched destitution. It's a world in which more animals
are now becoming extinct than has occurred since the extinction of the
dinosaurs, in which pollution has grown so extensive that there are many
who believe the damage caused by it is already beyond repair.
It's a world where political ideologies are used as an excuse for
massacring the innocent, while religions of love and forgiveness have
become a mere front for bigotry and hate. A world in which people
have come to believe that the best way to fight against the atrocities of
terrorism is to adopt the same modes of attitude and behavior that they
have vowed to defeat. It's a world where whole countries are governed
by nothing more nor less than monetary gain, its individual members being
held captive to the dictates of corporate interests. A world in which
people gone berserk with the anger and despair of their own captivity
sometimes commit mass murder as a means of retribution, shooting down
whomever their tortured minds cause them to perceive to be the enemy or
simply firing at random into crowds of complete strangers – an act
so heinous as to almost defy belief, yet one which occurs with such
frequency now as to almost border on the commonplace.
How have we come to such a pass? Was there some better course we
might once have chosen to follow? Perhaps. Then again, perhaps
not. We are partly what we choose to be, and partly we are what the
world makes us become. Many people today feel they have no choice
but to consent, as a general condition placed on their existence, to the
gradual corruption of their desire for a more enlightened, humane, and evolved
society in which to live, but they do so only because they find themselves
unable to recognize from what source that corruption springs, or feel themselves
to be incapacitated in their ability to fight against that corruption even
when its source has been correctly identified. When the systems we
invent to assist us in our governance become so deeply habituated to our
minds that it is no longer possible to envision alternative possibilities,
we may find that the scope of our individual potential has been correspondingly
diminished – and with that diminishment, so diminishes our ability to
control the destinies of our own lives.
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THE ANIMALS
Savage dreamers from long-ago times
Could not have foretold of this dark passage.
When they peered out with dumb animal eyes
From between the leaves at distant stars,
They saw dimly the eyes of gods,
But knew not that gods might weep for us.
Now a blight is spreading across the land;
It blots out the sun and poisons the water.
Now the animals are creeping from out of their houses;
Each in the dark sky sees their own angry face.
They've no one to answer to but one another;
Hopeless and helpless they don't believe a word
But stare down with dumb eyes at their uplifted palms,
Wondering what solace this nighttime can bring,
When dreams have grown dreadful and stars become hidden;
Wondering from whom they might seek forgiveness.
The animals shut their eyes to the darkness,
And from the darkness within, hear the weeping of gods . . . |
As for me, I am, as said, one who prefers his own company to the
company of others; I seek now only to complete the process of becoming
impervious within my selected solitude. I wonder about the world;
I wonder about myself. But not too much – never too much.
There seems little point, for there is little enough that I can do to
change either. Instead, I watch. I wait and I watch, just
to see, to see . . .
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2 A.M.
thought is useless
me
inside the shattered mirror
me
/and how I adore
these moments
stolen from the night,
how I adore
these moments
when I no longer care
if I'm wrong or if I'm right;
when I do not care
if I live or die;
do not care
if I I I:
when all I know is
thought is useless/
embraced
by the shattered mirror
rising slowly
into dreams
/me/
reassembling
ignorant wings
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