Wake Up

We never close,

but sometimes we have a hard time opening.

Too much serious, useless thinking amounting

to nothing. How many thoughts have you

actually acted upon? Each time you take a step

you don't think: "There's another one."

Somehow you manage to get from here to there.

In fact, walking and heavy thinking at the same 

time can be dangerous...you might fall into an

open manhole.

I'm not trying to be peckish, but, folks, how much

of your lives are you really there for?

Unless your job is fascinating and rewarding, that

cuts out about a third right there. Waiting for a two 

week vacation, coming back with snapshots and

memories of bad food is an absurd waste of time.

Is that the best we can do?

What is the American Dream, and has anyone

achieved it outside the Satanic cult of Hollywood

actors?

What is freedom? I suggest it might be the 

existential moment walking to the insurance job

writing poems like Wallace Stevens, for example.

For me, one thing was waking every day I knew I

didn't have to go to work. Now, that moment is

every day. I'm not saying any of this is profound.

It takes a lot of attention to see profundity in the

mere moments of unextraordinary life. But, it has

been done by thousands of people for thousands 

of years. To see this, just listen to the shakuhatchi,

read a poem by Basho or Issa, go to a tea 

ceremony.

Some old men that seem to just sit and stare aren't

always senile. Some have learned the art of doing 

nothing.

Work can be a crutch, even an addiction. How many 

retirees find themselves lost?

It's so human to dance and sing, to paint on cave

walls and subway walls, to tell stories and joke

around, to bay at the moon.

The "lost generation", Pound, Hemingway, 

Fitzgerald, were happiest when they were broke 

and creating in Paris. Kerouac drank himself to

death after his splurge of joy. Reaching success 

was their ultimate failure. They only realized how

important the journey was when they felt they had

lost it.

Whatever happens with you, my friends, the journey

will continue...there is no time line...time is not

linear. You could say there is a deadline, but is

death merely a re-boot?

Be curious, be interested...that's why there is 

nature at all, seeking it's answer in the sun.