Happy Despite the World: A Poem With Introduction
Most people are about as happy as they make up their mind to be.
-- Abraham Lincoln
Introduction
So I am reading, out of a sheer amusement, how the Brazilian President is asking if "what Israel is doing to Palestinians isn't the same what Hitler did to Jews with Holocaust".
And after reading what the two Jewish American scholars, Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein, are saying against the ways that Israel has been treating Palestinian people -- what am I concluding?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
All I can see out there is an ever persisting political and ethnical insanity, which won't get any smaller by my losing a nerve over it. Well, call me insensitive, I'll take it, with my own explanations which I give to myself, and which I don't owe to anybody else.
And I see another garden variety of insanity on just any other corner of the world's political circus, with insane history of greed and arrogance merely finding more sophisticated ways of repeating itself.
And I am not losing any sleep over it.
Again, nobody is really asking for my opinion, and I could only give myself a nervous breakdown or a stomach ulcer over it, making a doctor and a pharmacy happier for getting a new customer.
Altruism is a big word, indeed. Much advertised in books of morality and those holy books written by people -- not by gods.
Why not by gods?
Because if they had wanted to make us so perfect as to disable any crappy aspect of our negative behavior, they would have done it, not giving us a "free will" in those matters.
I already said all this in another of my articles -- namely, if gods didn't let us control our most delicate biological processes, then they could have also programmed us against making such total idiots of ourselves.
Count me out of all that religious mambo-jumbo philosophizing about altruism -- we are still in a big part animals, greedy, territorial, arrogant, jealous, and what-not -- merely inventing some dignifying names for that animalism in us.
Well, so I call myself a spiritual dude. As such, I am exploring that divine in my own nature, and technically speaking, I couldn't do it by being affected by all the negative crap going on.
I've got to nurture that divine essence in me. So I generate love, but not enveloping the whole humanity in it. Like, don't see me lying about "loving and forgiving" all the tenants in penitentiaries, plus those who should be there.
I love because love is an energy which may, or may not affect those around me and beyond. I love because love makes sense, not because the world is so deserving of my love.
Most of the folks don't even love themselves, so they won't miss my love at all.
In the poem below, I am saying how I am happy despite the world, and that's as sincere as can be.
So read it, if you will, and if any of you finds something inspirational within those lines -- well, then I won't write it just for my own literary creative fun.
From one hole I singularly came
and into another hole I'll singularly go
no one to join me, and there is no shame
just something that as an individualist I know.
And between these two events it's no one's duty
to pamper my ego with accolades and praises
and I can even see in it certain divine beauty
which makes me ignore altruistic phrases.
With all going on, it's like world is in a mission
to spoil my each attempt to create some true joys
as if I should beg for someone's merciful permission
to ignore all that global insanity which persistently annoys.
Celebrating life with each and every dear breath
along with my freedom so clownish and sweet
not thinking of illnesses, not thinking of death
living this life that's wondrous and complete.
For, who are they at all to stand in my way
to thwart this momentum of my joyous flight
I shake them off my wings and continue to play
with a sovereign pride that makes me feel so right.
Despite all the misery and self-inflicted pain
despite their trying to somehow make me join
I don't mind if my path is going against the grain
I let them have all riches, quite happy with my coin.
Given for keeps this gift of life to live
with a mind just wise enough to know it
I nurture this joy as good as I can conceive
being too grateful for it that I would ever blow it.
Despite the world and not being its copy
but respecting and loving all creatures alive
I don't really mind my looking somewhat dopy
drunk with self-made happiness on which i thrive.
We Owe Ourselves Happiness, the World Owes Us Nothing
© 2024 Val Karas