Things that make me smile
He shall mark our goings, question whence we came,
Set his guards about us, as in Freedom's name.
He shall peep and mutter, and night shall bring
Watchers 'neath our window, lest we mock the King.
-Rudyard Kipling, author, Nobel laureate (1865-1936)
A man can't ride on your back unless it's bent.
-Martin Luther King, Jr., civil-rights leader (1929-1968)
Sick and Tired.
Sick of the politics and the hate and the spitefulness of humankind. Tired of being so damnably alone in everything. I am an alien in my own country.
I could sleep for a week and not feel better. My soul is sick. My spirit is tired.
The government watches everything I do, tallies my comings and goings (and clicking and downloading and watching and reading).
Pollsters call my house and interrupt my tuna casserole with questions of my ethnicity and income level and how I will vote. They question why I will vote that way - as if I have not thought my voting through. As if I do not agonize over the lessor of two evils day after day after miserable day. Weighing the options like melons in my hands. I try to see every possible viewpoint, every crack in the veneer of civilization.
And I am sick of it all.
I do it to myself.
I bend over to accommodate my family, my friends and all the people in my universe. Somehow as I bend, as I bow I do not believe it is subjugation, martyrdom. It is courtesy, it is kindness it is not weakness.
Then I feel the claws of doubt, mistrust, fear, anger - they curl in my hair and the beast climbs gently onto my back.
I bow in honor and I carry the enemy on my back. He is the devil.
I am the devil's advocate.
And I am tired.
Set his guards about us, as in Freedom's name.
He shall peep and mutter, and night shall bring
Watchers 'neath our window, lest we mock the King.
-Rudyard Kipling, author, Nobel laureate (1865-1936)
A man can't ride on your back unless it's bent.
-Martin Luther King, Jr., civil-rights leader (1929-1968)
Sick and Tired.
Sick of the politics and the hate and the spitefulness of humankind. Tired of being so damnably alone in everything. I am an alien in my own country.
I could sleep for a week and not feel better. My soul is sick. My spirit is tired.
The government watches everything I do, tallies my comings and goings (and clicking and downloading and watching and reading).
Pollsters call my house and interrupt my tuna casserole with questions of my ethnicity and income level and how I will vote. They question why I will vote that way - as if I have not thought my voting through. As if I do not agonize over the lessor of two evils day after day after miserable day. Weighing the options like melons in my hands. I try to see every possible viewpoint, every crack in the veneer of civilization.
And I am sick of it all.
I do it to myself.
I bend over to accommodate my family, my friends and all the people in my universe. Somehow as I bend, as I bow I do not believe it is subjugation, martyrdom. It is courtesy, it is kindness it is not weakness.
Then I feel the claws of doubt, mistrust, fear, anger - they curl in my hair and the beast climbs gently onto my back.
I bow in honor and I carry the enemy on my back. He is the devil.
I am the devil's advocate.
And I am tired.