jellyfish

we hardly brush the surface--
in this thimble-housed existence--
losing all to custom and convention
to law and dread and consternation

yielding up the truth to God--
we seek the great approving nod
from people who mean beans to us--
yet beg them to preside

giving over what we are
to forms and forces never seen--
to bogus rules and patent lies--
we die before we learn to dream

what is it in our nature then
that makes such jellyfish of men?

Memo from the Chairman

Man macht musik

2 guys at Lupita's

As to how or why we come to life, I know not, and in a lifetime of examining my own and others’ experiences, I’ve found no person who does. These are among the eternal mysteries with which we are condemned to wrangle, and I imagine we’ll wrangle with them forever.

But I do know a few things for certain.  I know that we come to this earth well prepared for dealing with our time here. We are endowed with an admirable set of senses that allows us to appreciate this world and to protect ourselves from it. The beautiful but indifferent natural world we encounter has no interest in our survival. Yet we have brains and bodies miraculously well adapted to meeting the challenges of the physical world. If in the course of our time here all we were to ask of ourselves was to survive with a few comforts and to pass our genes to our progeny, I’m sure we could go about our business happy and satisfied, content with smelling the wild flowers on the wind and the passage of cumulous clouds across a cerulean blue sky.

So, given our prodigious physical and mental gifts and a world of endless beauty in which to apply them, how is it that so many are so unhappy? How is it that we have come to a point where the very talents we use to love and appreciate the world have carried us to the point of destroying it? The answer, I think, is boredom.

So, man macht musik.