You are not a tree
rooted in place
ebbing and flowing gracefully
with the changing of the seasons
You are not a hurricane
smashing through in haste
whithering and fading to nothing
The soothing echo of water in the pool
and the dim reflection of the sun
Plato and Aristotle knew the truth
but could not admit it
Happiness is not limited by nature
but only by philosophy
and there is nothing wrong with either
but they are not diametrically opposed
that is a trick played by historians
and the misguided who cannot uproot themselves
Be not a tree
Be not a hurricane
Be not that but what you feel is right
for there is no other path to follow
than that which is lain out before you
by yourself
There is good in every impulse and urge
even if following through thoughtlessly
leads to destruction
There is good in every heart and mind
even though so many turn to cruelty
malice hate spite envy greed and regret
There is a beacon in every shadow
calling you to re-place your mis-step
and if you know not which step to make
close your eyes
and it will shine in your mind's eye
and lead you on
out of error and mistake
and un-hope and non-surety
and into the unknown
5 comments:
wowsers. very nice.
interesting sort of whitman-esque/ emerson/buddhist kind of thing.
my fave stanza:
Happiness is not limited by nature
but only by philosophy
and there is nothing wrong with either
but they are not diametrically opposed
that is a trick played by historians
and the misguided who cannot uproot themselves...
me too i like that stanza. it elaborates on the what i have come to consider a fundamental realism (dont want to say "truth"), in that to every concept or idea, be it matter and void, love and hate, beauty and vile, there exists a dichotomy where two completely opposite phenomenas are inseperable and one ends existence depends on the other. The most interesting of these to me is the dichotomy of matter and void, as it relates to infinity.
Firstly, was infinity just a concept created to deal with the fact that our brains just aren't strong enough to conceive of such a vast universe
If we were to create a super spaceship and travel across the universe, would there be a place where matter would cease to exist?
I used to do mathematical equations in first year`calculus using the variable of infinity, and it would usurp all numerical values. You multiply one million times infinity and you just get infinity.
sorry everyone, my thought process is disorganized right now.
Infinity is the equivalent of those places on old maps where it said "Here There Be Dragons".
P.S. That's my way of saying your disorganized thought process makes perfect sense to me.
I think we as humans have an inborn drive to categorize, and a dichotomy is the most basic level of categorization (the only level below that is a singularity, which is not a category without higher levels to compare it to). I've read a lot of stuff in linguistic literature that leads me to believe that our unique use of language as a species falls directly out of our categorizing brains. I think music falls out of here too, and probably anything to do with representation.
P.P.S. That stanza came out of a conversation between two people about a specific group of people who don't express happiness outwardly, and it was one person's opinion that they might be too preoccupied with philosophizing about happiness to actually experience it.
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