The Demise of Man

A criticism of myself

 Our food is poison;
 Our children are starving
 yet we throw food away  
 before it has spoiled;
 Our decadence, our downfall. 
 The governors sedate us 
 because they are sedated
 by the demon of power. 

They are enslaved by coin--
No, not enslaved; but cultists.  
Cultists of coin;
Cultists of desire;
Cultists of lust; 
Cultists of power;
For they serve it to their deaths
For the power it gives them. 

We are torn 
between two worlds;
one pragmatic, 
the other idealistic.
But life is entropic
and so both can’t be realized 

Pragmatics fail due to 
failing to predict the unseen miracle
and Idealists fail due to
their delusion;
a false understanding of reality.
The truth is that Reality 
is a cruel mistress;  
she takes tenfold
for that which she gives 

 Faith is wasted on fools
 For if pragmatic skeptics had faith,
 none could stop them;
 But the faithful are sheep
 Being willing to be led out of trust
 and not out of knowing.
 But who can trust men
 who vacillate so often? 

 They come at you crying
 "Aren't you tired of 
 a life without meaning?"
 But what they cannot tell you
 That their meaning is de-meaning;
 The nobility of life it seems
 (to be) a plaything of the God or gods
 Without it you are hopeless,
 But with it you are hollow. 

 Resources
 There are plenty for everyone,  
 but no one shares.
 Adults correcting children are hypocrites
 Their politicians hoarders 

 The youth are sedated with chemicals
 only to wake up later to have been enslaved by life
 A life that would have liberated them had they prepared. 

 Why do we not stop ourselves?
 Can’t we take control of our own lives?
 Perhaps in resisting, it persists; we “fight”
 yet we still lose;  
 if we sought to lose, would we succeed? 

 If we fight hunger by giving men food,
 but wild animals, less intelligent than men,
 we discourage their feeding.
 But the wild animals still thrive
 As they did before us
 And the men still starve
 Waiting for hands to feed them 

 I have been poor
 And have been brought out of poverty
 Only to have been made poor again
 By my own mental poverty
 And my unwillingness to work
 in unhealthy conditions. 

 My tongue is slow and thick
 the sweet nectar of ignorance coats it
 please tell me if I am wrong,  
 and help me to see my error
 But perhaps, I err in my plea--
 If I am to be shown, I will rely on being shown
 And will not come to see on my own
 That which is right before my eyes.
 But perhaps, even the eyes do deceive,
 And we think we are just, when we are rotten. 

 I am left without conclusion;
 I feel powerless over my own ignorance;
 ashamed of my darkness;
 I feel stripped of my pride and dignity
 only to produce a false sense of these on my own.
 I feel, but cannot comprehend--
 Perhaps this is the way it was meant to be;
 from blindness to light, and light to blindness
 Too much light has blinded me,
 And now all I see is darkness 

 I feel as if I have no hands
 and so the landscape around me becomes a tomb
 I cannot climb out
 I cannot escape
 I cannot do. 

 For what I perceive to do
 will be undone before me
 by fate. And to what end?
 The end of Hubris. 

 Many things have double meaning
 And "to the end of Hubris" can be
 the end of pride
 or  
 The beginning of mockery 

But both can exist in the same sphere

 We must be kind to the wicked when they fall;
 How else will wickedness end?
 Would we not ourselves become wicked
 if we gloated over their fall?
 And so by our hubris, wickedness endures;
 The former righteous, become the wicked,
 And the former wicked, the righteous. 

 To evade wickedness, 
 we must embrace the wicked;
 Resist them not, for when they fall
 they will need friends to heal. 

 Are we not all mortals?
 Do we not all learn?
 Is that not part of the purpose of All Things?
 We know not why we are,
 but we do know that we are.
 Men will tell you otherwise,  
 but heed them not;
 They cannot tell you truth--
 Truth must be experienced.
 And yet they will argue that faith will tell you
 But they don’t even know what faith is-- 

I don’t even know what faith is.

 A belief in the unseen? Sounds like a fairy tale
 meant to scare children into going to sleep.
 But to not have faith?
 It’s a dismal place to be.
 Until you realize that hopelessness
 is not a bad thing.  
 To embrace the fact that hope is a crushing tool for the idealists
 Is to see the truth of hope for what it is;
 You cannot crush that which never was.
 Yet the pragmatists, without hope, are too rigid
 And cannot explore the realms of hope. 

 Perhaps wisdom is to acknowledge
 The marriage of the seen with the unseen
 The hopeful with the hopeless
 The darkness with the light
 The dynamic equilibrium of all things
 Ever changing, yet constant
 Ever dying, yet gaining new life
 The Ouroboros of Time,  
 eternally marching without direction.