Great & Small

Every morning if we rise
Life should be a blithe surprise
Every night we go to sleep
We have one more day to keep
All we do, both great and small
Is important for us all.
10.31.14

Technology & Enlightenment

Advances in technology
Keep pace with the times;
Advances in enlightenment
Remain mired in human nature
Independent of time and technology.
10.30.14

Lying & Justifying

Before we can lie to others
We first must betray ourselves
By seducing our consciences
With lovely justifications.
10.29.14

Fatigue & Age

Fatigue, subjective and unmeasurable
Is the negative force that limits life
Stifles initiative and productivity
And renders aging acceptable;
Whereas energy is the fire of youth
Fatigue is the smoldering ash of old age.
10.28.14

Solution & Aggression

Whenever the solution
Is aggression
Everyone loses.
10.27.14

Love & Age

It’s easier to fall in love when young
And harder to fall in love when old;
We need to make use of our youth
To fall in love as often as we can
With all the blithe spirits
That enrich our souls.
10.26.14

Perfection & Excellance

To strive for perfection is virtuous
To claim to have achieved it is delusional
To demand it is cruel and irrational
To expect it is counter-natural
To abandon it is to abandon excellence;
Doing one’s best is as close to perfection
As any one can ever get.
10.25.14

Truth & Nature

In all of nature
There is only truth;
But in human nature
Truth and falsehood
Comfortably coexist.
10.24.14

Writing & Thinking

Writing is thinking;
We can talk without thinking
And we can think without thinking
But we cannot write without thinking.
10.23.14

Joy & God

To insist on joy
Is to insist on the best life;
When joyful, we are closest to God;
When joyless, we lose that divine spark
Which ever lights up the darkness of our souls.
10.22.14

Hunger & Vulnerability

Thirteen hungers can make us vulnerable:
Knowledge hunger from ignorance
Nutritional hunger from starvation
Sexual hunger from frustration
Financial hunger from poverty
Power hunger from weakness
Health hunger from illness
Life hunger from danger
Youth hunger from age
Faith hunger from fear
Social hunger from isolation
Beauty hunger from aesthetics
Respect hunger from humiliation
And emotional hunger from loneliness;
When most satisfied we are least vulnerable.
10.21.14

Work & Play

Taking time to play
Increases efficiency
Reduces work stress
Encourages friendships
And delays burnout;
To work is to produce
To play is to live.
10.20.14

Sex & Life

The confusion
That life is about sex
Becomes clearer as we transition
From youth to old age
And realize, to our surprise
That it is sex, which is about life
Rather than life, which is about sex.
10.19.14

Legal & Ethical

In bureaucratic societies
There are legal issues
That are not ethical
And ethical issues
That are not legal;
Such dichotomy corrupts
By teaching that what is legal
Is more important than what is ethical.
10.18.14

Laughter & Life

Those who laugh more, live longer
And those who laugh at themselves
Live longest.
10.17.14

Cycles & Life

In the cycles life
When up, we grow stronger
When down, we grow weaker
And we have little control
On when and why we cycle;
We must wait for strength
When we are weak
Then do our best
When strong.
10.16.14

Failure & Power

To know and accept
That one has lost a battle
Is to allow a new beginning
To apprehend new knowledge
To become empowered by failure
And to aspire toward a new success.
10.15.14

Anger & Ends

Anger can have five natural ends:
It can be fed and fueled to grow like wild fire
Consuming everything, both good and bad;
It can be discharged by venting or consulting;
It can be studied till deep understanding occurs
Followed by peace and freedom form hate;
It can be allowed time to die a natural death;
Or it can be used as positive creative energy
To further art or to propel historic actions.
10.14.14

Ultimate & Self

The ultimate enlightenment
Comes from enjoying simplicity;
The ultimate ignorance
Comes from enjoying aggression;
The ultimate peace
Comes form the joys of humility;
The ultimate worry
Comes from the lack of wisdom;
The ultimate corruption
Comes from a vacuous conscience;
And the ultimate fear
Comes from the lack of faith.
10.13.14

Injustice & Justice

In virtual affairs
Such as movies and novels
Justice is applauded and injustice decried;
In corporate and national affairs
Justice is marginalized
And injustice, belied.
10.12.14

Unhappiness & Self

Before we blame our unhappiness
On issues beyond ourselves
Perhaps we should first check
To see if ourselves
Are the primary sources
Of our unhappiness.
10.11.14

Love & Soul

Love emanates from the self
And like an octopus with tentacles
Feeds our souls’ hunger by attaching
To ideas, places, and people;
Without self love, there is no love
And the stronger our self love
The stronger are our attachments;
When self love cannot attach to feed our souls
Our souls dry up and die of starvation.
10.10.14

Corruption & Evolution

Corruption
Is part of human nature
But not part of animal nature;
The price of our advanced evolution
Has been our ethical decline.
10.09.14

Laws & Consequences

Permissive laws
Encourage abuse;
Restrictive laws
Foment rebellion;
Golden mean laws
Don’t favor sides, and
Are seldom promulgated.
10.08.14

Hate & Death

The circle of hate is closed;
Hate leads to vengeance
Vengeance, to hate
Hate, to death.
10.07.14

Love & Life

The circle of love is open;
Love leads to forgiveness
Forgiveness, to gratitude
Gratitude, to friendship
Friendship to life.
10.06.14

Mood & Worth

Anyone or anything
That disrupts a good mood
Is probably not worth the worry.
10.05.14

Frugality & Wealth

Frugality, when one is poor, is a necessity
But when one’s wealth is surrounded by poverty
Inveterate frugality becomes a form of cruelty.
10.04.14

Honor & Law

To hold ourselves to higher standards
Than those required by the law
Is to live honorably.
10.03.14

Good & Bad

We are dismayed to find out
That one we think of as bad
Has yet some good
And one we think of as good
Has yet some bad;
The melange of good and bad
Is a fundamental human reality.
10.02.14

Faith & Life

Thrills end with repetition
Pleasures end with satiation
Happiness founders with boredom
And joy declines when passions subside
But it’s hard to stifle the grand attitude of faith.
10.01.14