A Poem - Alone With My Thoughts
Alone With My Thoughts
The world goes on around me, busy as always, its own stew of sense and nonsense.
The radio tries to communicate an interview with an expert on Shakespeare and women.
In prep-school there were no women our equals simply because at mine there were no women, nor were there any at the military academy because only men were trained then for careers of killing.
But in all other aspects of life, except in baseball, football, wrestling, hunting camps of the day, women were found to be the equals of the smartest, craftiest, dumbest, silliest, most generous, and selfish of us.
What does that mean?
Now the news is being covered in its typical shallowness of "If it bleeds, it leads." Shootings, stabbings, crashes, muggings, with the occasional miracle included but not named as such.
Is there a conscious effort to be irreligious? A pope gets a blurb or two from time to time, not usually other religious leaders, except the corrupt and extreme....no itinerant monks and lay preachers, perhaps an outspoken atheist who doesn't believe in air because she can't see it unless it is swirling tornado debris and still not even visible air then.
Couples wed, separate, children have two parents present and absent, people love, hate, reject, adore, are entertained, and find the entertainers' living roles the greater entertainment.
Advertisements sell the "stuff": nobody really needs, and plead the causes of those among us with legitimate needs for the "help" we ultimately give ourselves to the near exclusion of those "others."
How do my needs compare to the needs of those "others"?
Alone with my thoughts, at any given moment, I can steer them, or have them steered elsewhere, except in silence where one thought leads to another and the chain ends in weariness or interrupted by action.
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© 2015 Demas W. Jasper All rights reserved.
Comments
Interesting and thought provoking.
Hi Perspycacious! I relate to your angst re the world as it is rolling these days. Didn't quite follow the part about women, tho - not sure how it fits in; perhaps that's why you yourself asked "What does that mean?" I have the same question, lol.
Also love the photo. So funny how the people in that little crackerbox house have a giant boat and RV! Quite the ironic juxtaposition, and perfectly paints the picture of our increasingly soulless, loveless, alienated lives. Thanks for a peek into your soul.
Terri
- Author
Terri, I replied with a comment (two actually) on your most recent essay.
Spring is here finally and Tucson is heating up to its mercurial highs. Keep being the cool woman you are, and know that you have an abiding friend here on HP.
As for the photo, I was driving down the street that home was on and had to stop and get out and take the photo for all that the photo ended up saying to the two of us. Keep peeking! There is more there.
Analytically, I am trying to interpret here the women theme and how it may connect to materialism/excess/unmet needs. The photo was out of this world. Most obvious references
1) Shakespeare and women
2) no women at prep school
3) women were found to be the equals of the smartest, craftiest, dumbest, silliest, most generous, and selfish of us
4) outspoken atheist who doesn't believe in air because SHE can't see it
I guess only the writer knows for sure!
- Author
These were random thoughts reflecting my developing response to the inequalities women still face, with a response to Terri's comment and then the comment that thoughts in silence lead eventually to weariness or action. The materialism.excess,unmet needs was a separate thought as my mind moved on to other thoughts than the radio interview that first intruded on my thoughts. Women are the equals in all aspects in my opinion. Humans have varying personal strengths and weaknesses.
Thoughts interrupted by action...I like that idea. I enjoy your style as well. It's nice when you can see the stream of thought in a writer's work. It means they have a strong style, usually also unique.
Thoughts ramble on in our heads unless we direct them, I feel. However, sometimes it's good to give them free rein - but not for too long!
Ann
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annart - Ann, I presume "free rein" as you refer to it means "undirected thought." The world has experienced many prisoners of conscience imprisoned for years (e.g. Nelson Mandela) who experienced ong period of silence. Even in our sleep our brains are ogranizing the thoughts, activities, and snippets of the day in some fashion that completes our incompleted moments of the same. Directed thoughts are those by which we put all into action of some sort even if it is just in contemplation.
Exactly!
If we take each thing as it comes and one step at a time, eventually we will find like minded people, who will also take up the cause. We must not be impatient, though.
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aviannovice - (A pen name, by the way, that no longer applies to you and your degree in ornithology!) We have to keep putting ourselves and our thoughts out there, if we are to (as we do) "find like minded people." But oh what a joy it is when we do find even just the one.
Patience starts with a pat.
This poem brought me back to a conversation I had with my aunt. She told me to stop reading and thinking so much and enjoy life. Hey- what does she want from me? Writers have to think. So, in return I accused her of running the streets in order to "avoid" thinking too much. The thing is we were both right. We must be alone with our thoughts, thinking brings change.
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Dana Tate - I agree in that directed thinking and fashioned action do bring abut change. Only the mentally deranged cause change by their acted upon thoughtlessness. Keep reading and thinking and doing. You will make a difference in one life or many.
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