I'm going to leave this poem here for a while and it wouldn't hurt you to read it a few times. It wouldn't kill you to memorize it.
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.
-Ben Jonson
ADRASTIA: You are free to lobby against the governmental programs you oppose. You can try to have them changed. If enough people agree with you, and you go through the right channels, then the law can be changed.
BRICK PILLOW: This is high school civics all over again and no more true than it was the first time. If I foreswore every other interest in my life, gave up every hobby, abandoned every interest that gives me the slightest joy, discontinued all reading, ended all writing, and dedicated myself solely to the cause; if I gathered together with as large a group as I could muster, and we each worked tirelessly with every available working hour, for all the days remaining in our lives, we might, possibly, convince the city council to roll back the fee for a dog license, to 1978 levels.
Each night dry thunder wakes us up
Each day dust rises at our heals
How many dances,
God of rain,
Do you want us to do?
Jack waits for the space aliens to arrive. Herbert longs for Jesus's second coming. Jesus isn't going to say anything that he didn't say before; and the space aliens aren't going to say anything that humans haven't already said. They wait for some external power to change the external world, probably with violence. But even if the space aliens arrive with Jesus space skiing behind them, Jack and Herbert are still going to be the same on the inside. I'd advise them to forget second comings and cultivate their internal landscapes.
We say that government is an evil in itself, like slavery. They used to ask what the slaves would do when they were freed. Some people tried to come up with plans for what to do with the freed slaves. What did the freed slaves do? What will people do without the state? The answer is the same in both cases:
EVERYTHING
A dog lies dying in the road,
Near the house where the freeway ends.
The old men gather round it close
But nobody know what to do.
Headlines
Clinton Blames NRA for Congressional Losses
(November1994)
I can not hear the songs you sing
Because your hearts have all been broken.
Might is a fine thing, and useful for many purposes; for "one goes further with a handful of might than with a bagful of right." You long for freedom? You fools! If you took might, freedom would come of itself. See, he who has might "stands above the law." How does this prospect taste to you, you "law-abiding" people? But you have no taste!
--Max Stirner
The Reason Why
Because the rain acts as a lubricant
That helps the thorn or shard to pierce the tire
Angel in the Sun
And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;
That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.
Revelations 19: 17,18
It's cold where clouds are
Damp and vast is the sea
The sun is much too hot
Stay here and play with me
The opposite of love is fear.
I don't know what the opposite of hate is.
Something beautiful's dyin'
--from You Lost That Lovin' Feelin'
Our Day
At dawn we face a frozen ocean
And hear clouds cracking from the cold.
By dusk we watch the mermaids flee
From ravishing octupi
In an emerald sea.