Receiving & Favors

Receiving desperately needed favors
Can be taken in six different ways:
We can either receive with shame
Or with joy, or with gratitude
Or with indebtedness
Or with reluctance
Or with grace;
Only those who
Receive with grace
Give back with grace.
03.28.14

Death & Suing

Free and prosperous countries
Can sue themselves to an early death
When those who are doing the suing
Don’t hold their country’s welfare
Above their own.
03.27.14

Ideas & Truth

When we cling to ideas
Insisting that they are true
In spite of contrary evidence
We justify our irrational convictions
By believing that the contrary evidence
Is part of a conspiracy to hide the real truth.
03.26.14

Animals & Fakes

Whenever we pretend
That we are not animals
We turn into awkward fakes.
03.25.14

Intelligence & Destiny

Intelligence can be
Put to good use
Or to bad use
Or to no use
It can be dulled
Or it can be sharpened
And all of these five destinies
Have little to do with intelligence
And everything to do with character.
03.24.14

Life & Significance

Significant life
Is lived between
Our two main loves:
Our first and our last;
Outside these two loves
Life has a difficult time
Finding significance.
03.23.14

Wisdom & Passions

As wisdom is of age
And passions are of youth
We must guard our passions
Against wisdom’s platitudes
Lest we prematurely age
And lose our fires.
03.22.14