Stray thoughts today...

The way one gains strength is by first becoming weak.
All things return to their opposites, and their opposites to them.
That which fills a vacuum leaves one.

A Non-Standard Christmas Message

Events lately have resurrected and modified an old idea of mine, namely that for everyone on the planet, there are 60 (blind ballpark figure) people to support them…think of it as 6-10 billion fruit trees that share, only we’re humans, not trees. That said, it depends on us and how we use the technologies that are with us and coming to us. Do we open up and connect? Or do we hunker down and isolate ourselves out of fear? The government and corporations with which we seem to share a love/hate relationship are really only enablers of our collective nature. Look at the Iranian government’s oppression of its own population, and how the whole rest of the world worked together to get the word out and oppose that oppression. It can happen again; albeit so can the opposite. China clamps down hard on its people’s use of the internet, but there exist elements of tech-resistance to that particular oppression, especially out here on the other side of their control.

It comes down to this: Us. What do we allow to be done to ourselves and those who share our lot behind other walls? What do we do with the tools and toys in our own hands? Which is stronger? The good or the bad side of human nature? If, as I hope and suspect, the good is stronger, then the technologies of connectivity will ultimately do for us what we need them to do: allow all of us to financially and emotionally support each other to the very last person on the planet, so that we can all live productive lives of our own reasonable choosing. That’s what I hope for.

Merry Christmas, Everyone. 

The Top

Balanced on the wire
My feet feel the fire
Of friction endless
Even merciless
Down is disaster
Up is not allowed
The Stratosphere of others
For me disavowed
Here the median
Maintaining heat again
There is but one path
Out -- I know the math
Burn out
Ashes in my mouth
Smoke rises where once denied
While soot falls lifelessly south

"Exchange"

Knowledge

Remember that day
When your face took in the sun?
The winds howled snow
On the ice sheet had their run
What was mortality then?
Whence the pale horse?
On the plains of those middle years
Distant trumpets had no force
Sure we watched others
Close yet almost lost
Far from our position
Their souls already touching frost
How could we not but reach
Towards what they must have felt?
And yet utterly fumble fingers
That still caused frost to melt
Did your heart feel the ghost
Of future self, free of distance?
Mine has from the first
Yet frostbite holds this instance.
(9/30/09)

Surrender

This valley is big
and small
at the end
we see the wall
it casts a shadow
near the base
against the sun
there's no disgrace
Everyone
will stand before it
you and I
must learn to face it
but we pass through
each to the other side
and there who knows?
Go with the tide.