Latitude and longitude
Your numbers are beautiful
Alphabet of secrets
The ones you'd never tell
Facing a ballroom door
Step foot inside this fire
We get so comfortable
Hour by handsome hour
So sweet, specifically for me
I'll slowly swallow all the sea
Breathe deep and come and visit me
I'm not a sheep, I'm not asleep
This is so soft
I've been dreaming of this moment for so long
My thoughts are rested but my body is weak
Imagine we are walking through the woods. We come upon a lake in the woods, where I pick something up and declare I have found the most fantastic ruby. From a distance, you cannot see what I have, so you come over to see the ruby. Before you reach me, I throw something that vaguely resembles a ruby as far as I can, almost into the center of the lake. "Oh, wow," I say. "That was fantastic; a really great find. It was all worth it, everything." And I move on, embarking further into the woods, waiting for you to follow me. I expect you to believe me, regardless of if I had the ruby, because we are doing what I want to do, and I am the leader.
What we need to realize is that the residents of the universe look vastly different from one another. Not just on a person to person basis, but within the all-encompassing cosmos. We look a lot different from our closest genetic relative, the chimpanzee, yet we are the same as the chimpanzee. We are the same as a banana, as a gardening tool, as a distant meteor. We can take a scientific look at an atom of hydrogen and an atom of carbon and have no problem describing the difference between not only these two atoms, but between these two atoms and ourselves. The truth is, however, that there is little difference between us and the atoms. The elements of the periodic table make up literally everything in the known universe. While it is a more difficult position to take, I propose that we start focusing on how similar everything is, and how we are all one. Not just "we" as the human species, but the cosmic we: life and non-life everywhere in the universe, incredibly large and infintismally small, amazingly beautiful and all part of a single universe. Ours.
Imagine it is the first time ever seeing your hometown. Imagine seeing specific roads you may take and specific places you may spend your time. Imagine seeing them again for the first time, and try to imagine what your first impressions of these places may have otherwise been. Now, try to foresee how a different first impression would change your current opinions of those roads or those places.
So many different factors contribute to the act of becoming attached to a location. This applies not only to places, but to things, animals, even people. First impressions are extremely important, but not in the way where the mindset is to be absolutely perfect. Decorum and proper etiquette are not always the correct way to approach a meeting. No, it truly depends on both of the people who are meeting; their attitude, their demeanor, and how they harmonize at the precise moment of meeting one another. First impressions, in large part, help shape our relationships, both with those we love so much it hurts, and with others whom we despise as deeply as we can.
Even if I want it, adventure is my enemy. So I need to explore, leave my comfort zone, feel ill at ease. I need to do those things so I don't end up as a nothing. Because right now, I literally can't bring myself to go and do anything because it sounds scary and I am content with sitting in my room on a computer.
"2011 will be my year," said Adam as he continued to sit at his computer. "Here." He offered up a website with some of his music. All very old, all in need of a booting out by newer, better material.
"Time to be an artist, art man," inner-Adam told outer-Adam.
Maybe the problem is that I am a poet, and not another artist. At least, not another artist completely. I urge you to try many arts to find the right one for you. Maybe one, maybe more. And maybe I wanted to get rich from my chosen favorite art form. Well, that clouded my vision. I am clearly in a sandstorm, apparent more and more.
Privately commissioned, individual owners of a wide variety of trucks, who happen to also have a plows on the fronts of them, plow the parking lots of corporations before our own government cleans the road for all its citizens. I am unable to see the lanes of traffic, cars are sliding about, and traffic lights trigger improperly, all because of the snow. And all of this occurs while Burger King and Walmart have a spotless premises.
This is certainly petty, but there are bigger problems than this. Much bigger. Corporations that perpetuate a system where money is more important than anything else are the real bad guys.
Money is a coupon you exchange for goods that you need (or oftentimes merely "want," sadly). The ultimate goal of life and existence--past, present, and future--should not be to acquire something as meaningless and worthless as money.
The only thing that matters to a living organism is happiness, or more simply, well-being. The slavery we subject ourselves to in order to earn a worthless coupon is, by itself, unacceptable. The fact that we then redeem it for goods that we usually don't need is another travesty altogether. Society tells us to consume to be happy, but that is not how to obtain happiness. By paying into the system, we encourage greed and perpetual production of cheap, equally worthless products, mirroring the false pursuit of money.
The products we buy with our worthless dollars are cheap, unnecessary, degrade our culture, and pollute this planet we depend on simply to sustain our existence. Why are these products made? What is the ultimate goal? Money--nothing more.
And with money comes the ability to control the distribution of goods. Time passes, and more and more money is earned by corporations. Yet they still want more as they continue to produce sub-standard products. Products that break down too soon, products that don't last, and products that cannot adequately perform the tasks which they are designed to do.
They've bought you, they've bought the government, they've bought the country, and they've bought the entire planet. All with a coupon that isn't real to begin with. We keep working, earning, and spending, thus handing over more and more power. The money in a money driven economy, despite its power in reality, is the most powerful force.
But why empower something that, in a natural world where true happiness and well-being can be attained, simply doesn't exist? Because we've made a mistake, and it's time to change the way things are done on this planet.
