When East and West come together in spectacular style, full volume is recommended throughout…
Tag: Inspiration
Power, Responsibility, and just the Right Thing.
Emptiness
Contained within the trillions of nuclei that make myself
Ingredients of sorrow, woe and agony translate themselves
Until they come to define my existence
The remnants of all other states are void
Emptiness then conquers with persistence
All forms of stimulation I avoid
But in that state of numb submission, pacified I am indeed
When lowered to self-worthlessness, one cannot comprehend man’s greed
Men whose being influences billions of other souls
Mistake responsibility for power, and corruption grows
Not only in the mind of the beholder
But spreading thick and fast and sick
Rewarding all of those whose minds grow colder
Exterminating those who might have dared to challenge it
Thus my mind full of emptiness is torturous in this respect
Existence un-deprived and un-oppressed
But still I find myself so inconsolably depressed
There must within my nuclei be other lines of code
Directing other paths down which my happiness has strode.
(freewillisntfree.com)
Why do almost all world ‘leaders’ usually appear devoid of ‘common’ characteristics like expression of emotion, empathy, compassion etc? Is it a prerequisite for a career in politics, or does the choice of life-path drain their souls of these human traits?
They can’t all be depressives, surely!
No, depressives may struggle with expression of certain emotions, but we’ve got them in us, that’s for sure. Maybe it’s the same with powerful figures except a different oppressor on the mind keeps them obscured, such as the unimaginable weight of responsibility, as opposed to the mental illness. Sir Winston Churchill dealt with both of these at a time of World War, which I find utterly astounding, and admirable beyond belief.
I can muster no envy for people with excessive power or responsibilities to other humans, maybe I just fear that the various ‘systems’ of the world will inevitably fail them, and maybe so do the leaders themselves, so avoid excessive rocking of an unstable boat in choppy waters. Speaking of which, there are humans risking their lives and literally dying trying to escape their war-torn homelands. They’re being forced out against their will, into a treacherous journey of many perils which hundreds and hundreds of human beings are not surviving. And some people in their safe and cosy country cottages or council houses want to send them back! Is empathy gradually dying out amongst human souls?! Is it burdensome to have a little compassion?!
A slight diversion from the subject there, but it’s all related really isn’t it? The leaders must display power, wealth, support, determination, etc. as long as they have them, to their people and those of other countries. But with power comes responsibility. If some of the richest countries in the world can’t pull together to help some of the most desperate and oppressed people in the world, what hope is there for mankind? I know Merkel has received much due praise for her compassionate stance on the current crisis, but the growing opposition from other sides to what seems to me, moral, is frightful, don’t you think?
Just a thought, thanks for reading .
L
Free will
Free Will
In solitary I question who I am
In company I know not who to be
Free will is a fantastical scam
I’ve never found an ounce of it in me
Whoever that may be, or does become
Whatever branch he doesn’t choose en-route
I’m on my shoulders like a loving son
A ride through life is closer to the truth
So if it takes me in or out the way
Up to a peak or further down as feared
I’ll have no regrets or words to say
On where my unique humble life was steered
Whoever I am, or do become
It is beautiful, that I am one.
(freewillisntfree.com)
Free will is a strange notion isn’t it? How we go about our lives feeling like we’re making all of our own decisions, when we often forget whether we’ve done something. Surely we’ve all felt that we’ve been on ‘auto-pilot’ for a time, but to what extent can our brains control us without us thinking about it, or even remembering doing it?
Let’s discuss this from all angles and perspectives, remember this is a community so everyone’s input is valued. I’d love to hear different religious or cultural attitudes to ‘free will’ from around the world, so please post your thoughts here and respect each other’s opinions. Debate but don’t attack. Thanks.
Whatever it is, it certainly isn’t free…
L
An Unweeded Garden
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t! O fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
(Hamlet, Shakespeare)
In a way, Hamlet saved my life. When I read Hamlet or see it performed, the extremes of anguish and despair seem to en-cloak my heart in empathy. If you suffer from depression and haven’t seen Hamlet performed on stage, I really can’t recommend it enough. I don’t know if Shakespeare was a depressive, but he was definitely a genius, and he seems to represent depression in words better than anyone else I’ve come across in literature or music. This is from around 413 years ago, and I still wish I could cry like a normal person when I read it. Why don’t people write tragedies any more? Life is so often tragic, the world is just as tragic now as it was then, so why does Hollywood demand optimism? Some European films have come close to tragedy, but nothing quite as sublime as Shakespeare, Marlowe or Webster (my personal favourites). If anyone can recommend me any truly tragic movies, please don’t hesitate.
Anyway, I was going to explain how Shakespeare, and particularly Hamlet saved, or at least changed my life. I’ve tried to write songs off and on for the whole of my depressed adult life. It is nothing other than torture though, when one has such desperation to find words to describe their mind’s life, and cannot gain any confidence in, or satisfaction from what is written. I picked up the Works of Shakespeare for some poetic inspiration. Boy was I inspired, I found impossible brilliance in the Sonnets, and just flicked back a few pages to feed a growing curiosity. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. ‘Oh, I’ve heard of Hamlet’, I thought, ‘I’ll just read the first act and see what it’s like’. I was hooked before Hamlet even appears, but more so after his first words of the play, an under the breath utterance of retort against Claudius’ patronising words: ‘A little more than kin, and less than kind’ (Act I Sc II). Not to mention the following speech to his Mother on his profound grief for his Father’s death. Hamlet’s Mother has the cheek to ask him of his grief ‘why seems it so particular with thee?’, his response is beautiful:
Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not seems.
‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc’d breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected ‘haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly: these, indeed, seem;
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
(Act I Scene II)
This brilliance is followed hard upon by the astounding soliloquy quoted briefly above to open this post.Look how I’m being pulled by different threads of thought and inspiration, and not getting to the point, blame the bard. The point is that by the time I had finished reading this sublime tragedy, I knew that I wanted to study English. Now that might not sound like a big deal to you, but to me dear reader, it was a new direction that wasn’t down, and if I hadn’t changed direction I’m not sure how much further I had to fall, so there’s how the play-write may have saved my life. My only disappointment with the English study so far: not enough tragedy. But then again, my mind is tragic enough as it is.
As always, dear reader, your thoughts and responses are welcome and encouraged. Maybe you’ve had a similar epiphany on something completely different, I’d love to hear about it. Thanks for reading.
L
freewillisntfree 