BUT ALL THE WHILE MY LIPS ARE WHISTLING OUR TUNE
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful." --Lord Henry Wotton, The Picture of Dorian Gray
I swear, one of these days I'm going to stop this self-destruction.
Prometheus
When I was a child
not knowing my way,
I turned my erring eyes sunward--
as if, above, there were an ear to hear my lamentation,
a heart like mine, to care for the distressed.
Who helped me against the Titan's wanton insolence?
Who rescued me from death, from slavery?
Was it not all your doing, holy glowing heart?
And young and good, you glowed--
Betrayed, with thanks for rescue
to He who slept above.
I honor you? For what?
Have you ever eased the suffering of the oppressed?
Have you ever stilled the tears of the frightened?
Was I not wielded to manhood
by Almighty Time and
Eternal Fate
and yours?
Did you not fancy perchance that I would hate life,
and fly to the desert
because not all of my blossomed dreams ripened?
Here I sit,
forming men in my own image--
a race to be like me
to suffer, to weep
to delight and to rejoice
and to defy you,
as I do.
(Goethe)
Question everything, deconstruct, differentiate, re-define, explain, revolt, you are not allowed to dream, you daren't, until you finish. Death is time to dream, life is not. Language is faulty, but intuition remains primal and untouched. Solidarity is necessary, grouping around empty, socially constructed terminology that creates binaries based on "inside" and "out", "us" and "them" is not. Self-reflection is necessary, transcendence at the expense of the oppressed is not. Do what you must do manifest what you are, but remember that every time you exclude, excommunicate, murder--body or soul-- jail for life, mark-brand-stamp as hopeless, exploit and run from in embarrassment--every person who is on your shit-list, your black-list, your list of eternal grudges, eternal enemies---you are not increasing the dimensions of hell by some arbitrary fraction, Dante's Hell of camraderie exists not---you are making hell one person, two people, 20 people bigger by increasing their sense of isolation and hopelessness. Hopelessness comes with a loss of faith in whatever one has faith in. In our post-modern society, the boundaries seperating who we are, who the "other" is, who is divine, who is of celebrity status--all are melting. Therefore we are as vulnerable as we have ever been because we are not sure who we should have faith in--ourselves, some modern idol, a familar or exotic God(ess) or group of divine creatures, or each other. As boundaries of reverence melt, boundaries of consciousness follow homologously. We are merging. Love thy neighbor. Love without condition, without needing to know her/his personal preferences. Help free humanity from hell. Assume existential responsibility. Don't jugde a someone because they are rich, poor, diseased, foreign, gay, transgender, heterosexual, intellectual, construction worker, free-mason, minister, mother, child-free single, et al. Stop thinking you are living after you have settled into a lifestyle that you are not completely satisfied with. You are dying just as much as anybody with AIDS ever will be.
I swear, one of these days I'm going to stop this self-destruction.
Prometheus
When I was a child
not knowing my way,
I turned my erring eyes sunward--
as if, above, there were an ear to hear my lamentation,
a heart like mine, to care for the distressed.
Who helped me against the Titan's wanton insolence?
Who rescued me from death, from slavery?
Was it not all your doing, holy glowing heart?
And young and good, you glowed--
Betrayed, with thanks for rescue
to He who slept above.
I honor you? For what?
Have you ever eased the suffering of the oppressed?
Have you ever stilled the tears of the frightened?
Was I not wielded to manhood
by Almighty Time and
Eternal Fate
and yours?
Did you not fancy perchance that I would hate life,
and fly to the desert
because not all of my blossomed dreams ripened?
Here I sit,
forming men in my own image--
a race to be like me
to suffer, to weep
to delight and to rejoice
and to defy you,
as I do.
(Goethe)
Question everything, deconstruct, differentiate, re-define, explain, revolt, you are not allowed to dream, you daren't, until you finish. Death is time to dream, life is not. Language is faulty, but intuition remains primal and untouched. Solidarity is necessary, grouping around empty, socially constructed terminology that creates binaries based on "inside" and "out", "us" and "them" is not. Self-reflection is necessary, transcendence at the expense of the oppressed is not. Do what you must do manifest what you are, but remember that every time you exclude, excommunicate, murder--body or soul-- jail for life, mark-brand-stamp as hopeless, exploit and run from in embarrassment--every person who is on your shit-list, your black-list, your list of eternal grudges, eternal enemies---you are not increasing the dimensions of hell by some arbitrary fraction, Dante's Hell of camraderie exists not---you are making hell one person, two people, 20 people bigger by increasing their sense of isolation and hopelessness. Hopelessness comes with a loss of faith in whatever one has faith in. In our post-modern society, the boundaries seperating who we are, who the "other" is, who is divine, who is of celebrity status--all are melting. Therefore we are as vulnerable as we have ever been because we are not sure who we should have faith in--ourselves, some modern idol, a familar or exotic God(ess) or group of divine creatures, or each other. As boundaries of reverence melt, boundaries of consciousness follow homologously. We are merging. Love thy neighbor. Love without condition, without needing to know her/his personal preferences. Help free humanity from hell. Assume existential responsibility. Don't jugde a someone because they are rich, poor, diseased, foreign, gay, transgender, heterosexual, intellectual, construction worker, free-mason, minister, mother, child-free single, et al. Stop thinking you are living after you have settled into a lifestyle that you are not completely satisfied with. You are dying just as much as anybody with AIDS ever will be.