Always a fan of your richly textured language. Here, I get an impression of someone (a square peg, as the title suggests), who deliberately shirks the easy chaos of contemporary life, of Facebook likes and the like. That person, still unsatisfied, is contemplating the nature of goodness and whether their deliberate disavowal of these tropes is actually good or not.
It's very satisfying to see a forceful interpretation! I think that it also brings up interesting questions. For example: is it a need for satisfaction that drives one towards goodness? If not, then what is it?
Aesthetics are super important in poetry, no? I love putting words together in ways which I've never seen before. But sometimes I do worry that the density can become a block to ease of understanding. But making art is in some sense about making choices I guess.
I certainly have not been able to abandon my pride, and perhaps that is why I remain dubious of dogmas that hinge on the release or dismissal of self. In a world of billions, in a universe of all and no consequences, it seems like only clutching to my stubborn ego can make my sliver of perception livable. Perhaps there would be utter serenity on the other side-in submitting to just being atoms among atoms. But I've seen those crossing to that side be destroyed in the journey. For now, I'll hold onto hubris. Even Rimbaud, in my eyes, didn't remove "self" in his quest to be the voyant. In erasing his self in the name of seeing what can be seen, are we not still left with a self, transformed though it may be, with which to measure the depth of experience? Don't we still need the drunken boat to see the ocean floor? If anything, it seems almost like a heightened egotism that allows for a heightened lens of perception. I guess for now I'm content with knowing that my fecklessness and sense of self-importance are immutably linked
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“pride / Is a far cry from dominance,” i.e. pride is not the same as the kind of excessive egotism which can often lead to unhelpful (and exploitative) ethnocentrisms. I am with you however when it comes to being dubious of [all] dogmas
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There is no responsible liberation from persona, only snake oil hawked by hucksters to obtain submission from will to whatever higher power is being peddled. Waving all controls is in and of itself irresponsible; just because one denies having responsibility does not free one from it. It is true we cannot control more than ourselves by squeezing tighter to that which cannot be controlled simply through force of will, but the notion that surrendering control gives us freedom is a pipe dream. It is true you can’t have the kind of freedom one gains from nothing left to lose when you are tied to the restrictions of domesticity, but it is also true that the apparent quiet we feel in concealment, either by hiding our true nature to others, or to ourselves, is not freedom, but merely delusion
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Regarding your first point, you are saying that no essential truths exist, all that exists are false claims about essential truths? On your second point, I feel you misinterpreted at least my take on responsibility, although I am willing to concede it being my fault due to the cryptic nature of this poem. My take on responsibility is that you must strip away all supernatural/superficial notions of responsibility, until you are left with nothing else but the pure potential within yourself to take complete responsibility for everything that has to do with yourself
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I do believe truth exists, and, in fact, in many forms. There are constant truths, immutable to opinion or “alternate facts,” and there are personal truths, more malleable as once experiences the changes of life. My first comment is in response to the sense that my impression of the entire first stanza reads like the religious indoctrination of the types who believe you have to “let go and let god” in order to know true strength, to give away yourself completely and leave your “higher power” in control. I’m more of the notion that if you let “Jesus take the wheel,” you’re only going to end up in a ditch
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Yes. Thank you for calling this out. The ambiguity of poetry compared to argumentation has really brought out this tension. I couldn’t agree more with you. Again to try and clarify my position here, if people believe responsibility is linked to surrendering their will to god, then I advocate fecklessness as a means to take true responsibility for one’s moral life
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I think that it also brings up interesting questions. For example: is it a need for satisfaction that drives one towards goodness? If not, then what is it?
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It’s the ataraxia of wearing a mask
That defines the role emptiness plays for the cask;
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I'm happy to know that part worked for you.
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Your poems are so dense, I could chew through the language for hours. It has a great mouthfeel.
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But making art is in some sense about making choices I guess.
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