Still Apropos

"The world is a beautiful place

to be born into

if you don't mind happiness

not always being

so very much fun

if you don't mind a touch of hell

now and then

just when everything is fine

because even in heaven

they don't sing all the time

The world is a beautiful place

to be born into

if you don't mind

some people dying

all the time

or maybe only starving

some of the time

which isn't half bad

if it isn't you

Oh the world

is a beautiful place

to be born into

if you don't much mind

a few dead minds

in the higher places

or a bomb or two

now and then

in your upturned faces

or such other improprieties

as our Name Brand society

is prey to

with its men of distinction

and its men of extinction

and its priests

and other patrolmen

and its various segregations

and congressional investigations

and other constipations

that our fool flesh is heir to..."

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

How quickly time seems to pass. Days are filled with deadlines and demands which loom large because someone else has deemed them important and I, like a mouse in a spinning wheel, haplessly pursue their perpetually elusive completion. How easily my mind is fooled into believing that this is a purposeful life. Did my rebellious spirit abandon me, or did I abandon it? There was a time when I would immerse myself in those deliciously vital urges to study, ponder, wonder, read, write, connect...Now I "accomplish." It's strange how these "accomplishments" are infinitely less satisfying than the non-utilitarian pursuit of the philosophical. I attend classes and workshops; I write reports and treatment plans; I read work-related books and publications. My days are so full they seem to burst at the seams. But I hunger for more depth, more meaning.


Song of the day: The Riddle from Scarlet Pimpernel

Photo: Tanah Lot: Bali, Indonesia