CCXIII
You want madness, here’s madness:
Peace on earth, good will to all.
* * * *
The most you can hope
Of anyone running a show
Is that they strive for the benefit
Of as many little people as possible.
* * * *
Revenge has a long memory,
And many, many means
To tortured ends.
* * * *
How many ideas we come up to die for.
* * * *
Young folks have to endure much suffering
Before learning to endure the absurdity.
* * * *
The trick, once you have a great idea,
Is not to become a slave to it.
* * * *
A magical mystery tour headed tragically awry.
* * * *
The metaphorical chains of wage slavery.
* * * *
Amazing how many ways we have found
To taint water with one vice or another.
* * * *
Every group its own collusion.
* * * *
A circus of one.
* * * *
Like…you know…like…you know…
* * * *
Words fail you, yet still they come.
* * * *
So easy to be lonely.
Much harder to be alone.
* * * *
So much effort for so many willful reasons.
* * * *
Well, the dishes are clean,
The rug is vacuumed,
The tires are full,
The laundry is folded,
Hmm…maybe there’s time
To save the world before dinner…
* * * *
All forms dissolve, break or die.
Nothing is permanent.
The challenge
Is to willingly surrender everything
When that moment arrives, and existence ends.
* * * *
One of the greater addictions in life
Is the anonymity of solitude.
* * * *
Anther passing moment wanders
Into the mirage of memory.
* * * *
Whether it is discerned or not,
We all have one thing in common.
* * * *
Like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy,
God is a wishful assumption.
* * * *
To be nothing is to be everything.
* * * *
Don’t let the world hold you back.
* * * *
Doubt only what the senses discern.
The Way is smoky clear.
* * * *
God loves the dice, Mr. Einstein.
* * * *
Who can say who will see, and who will not.
There are no boundaries in the mystical eye.
* * * *
Practice indifference,
And the chaos of daily existence
Takes on a peaceful clarity.
* * * *
The more deeply you delve,
The more obvious it becomes.
Uncertainty dissolves in the surety
As seamlessly as sugar in water.
* * * *
Those of meek wit will not find haven in these thoughts.
* * * *
The Golden Calf…
Just another tasty morsel
On the spit of time.
* * * *
The unwritten epitaph of Socrates…
There is not enough poison
To undo what has been done.
* * * *
Can any parent see their children clearly?
* * * *
What’s the rush?
You will be dead soon enough.
* * * *
But what if the majority is insane?
* * * *
To believe you are anything but everything
Is the only madness.
* * * *
Intelligence and ignorance
Both find avenues to delusion.
* * * *
Without desire,
Without fear,
Without remorse,
The sage roams the abyss
Alone, anonymous, unconcerned, content.
* * * *
How can you be anything but agnostic?
Nobody really knows anything,
And nobody ever will.
* * * *
Through repetition, we all paint ourselves into a corner
From which the inclination for change all but disappears.
* * * *
At the end of any given day, you’re always still you.
No matter what you’ve learned, no matter what you’ve done,
No matter anything that may, or may not have happened.
* * * *
You cannot speak for tomorrow.
You can only act today.
* * * *
What if they’re all right?
What if they’re all wrong?
* * * *
To fundamentally, really, totally, absolutely,
And without hesitation, not care,
Is a formless art.
* * * *
Be wary the true believer,
For to deny his cause
Is to become his enemy.
* * * *
So vain as to have sought a place in history.
* * * *
How we cling to what we think we know.
* * * *
So much ado about nothing.
* * * *
Any given passion
Is merely the wind of consciousness,
By its nature brief and erratic.
* * * *
Salvation is realizing how little you truly know.
* * * *
Concepts are the links, and also the walls between us.
* * * *
Go ahead, lose your mind.
* * * *
Take all your assumptions,
And what have you got?
Bibbity-bobbity, bibbity-bobbity boo.
* * * *
Although, in reality, you cannot really kill your Self,
Offing this particular existence is an option.
Not necessarily in the spirit of a good
Take-it-on-the-chin team player,
But it is an option, as all options are.
* * * *
Is happiness really any more
Than the absence of sorrow?
* * * *
Childhood seems the happiest time,
And then the world barges in
With all its silliness.
* * * *
Funny how food,
No matter how exquisite,
Always manages to turn into shit.
* * * *
No matter whether form or concept,
The more investment one gives it,
The more challenging to let go.
* * * *
You are ultimately that to which
Neither pride, guilt, sorrow, nor joy can cling.
The eternal has no need of the whims of hell and heaven.
All consciousness is born of illusion.
All definition is limitation.
* * * *
You are merely a vehicle
Through which the essence
Witness its eternal landscape.
* * * *
So absurd, yet so hard to laugh it away.
* * * *
What good does it do to heal another
If they have not learned from their pain?
* * * *
History is such a temporary,
Quickly forgotten thing.
* * * *
A play in which all things are possible,
And all hope is unnecessary and futile.
* * * *
Truth without paradox and irony
Is like wind without twigs and leaves.
* * * *
Gravity, the unseen force woven into every pattern.
* * * *
This interlude you identify as your life,
This dreamy history to which you are so attached,
Is nothing but fantasy; baggage imprinted upon the synapses.
We are all absorbed in our bubbles of imagination.
Even those who seem selfless are driven
By the deception of the senses,
And the desire into which they feed.
* * * *
Wisdom has no name.
* * * *
Remember Easter Island,
For that is how absurd it can get,
And probably will in the time yet to come.
* * * *
Death is the end of consciousness.
The end of consciousness is the end of time.
* * * *
What is truly seen is not forgotten.
* * * *
So much babble about nothing.
* * * *
There is how the world of illusion works,
And how reality does not.
* * * *
A deft manuscript for any who come patiently inquiring.
* * * *
Heretics are god’s only salvation.
* * * *
How many histories have ended
With a last wheezing breath.
* * * *
Death’s gift to all histories
Is complete and utter annihilation.
* * * *
Every twist and turn
Just another opportunity
For one calamity or another,
With a few respites in happiness,
Perhaps even laced with a touch of joy,
Just to keep you playing.
* * * *
Gravity always gets the last laugh.
* * * *
Moving on…
* * * *
More soon…
* * * *
Brought to you by…
* * * *
In the primal essence
There is neither good nor evil.
There is but the ground
Of all potential.
* * * *
The conspiracy smokescreen gambit
Is always sure to get at least a pause.
* * * *
What seems so important today
Will be even more unimportant tomorrow.
* * * *
How is it that as the road narrows,
The horizon becomes so expansive?
* * * *
Who else could you really be?
* * * *
Romantic at one end
Is just a broken pile of bones
Crumbling into powder on the other.
* * * *
Yes, even The Dark Lord Satan can find grace
If s/he pauses for a moment of Self-reflection.
* * * *
A good idea, like truth,
Belongs to everyone.
* * * *
That which only blood can tell.
* * * *
Do you really think most people give a tinker’s damnation
What goes on in any other head but their own?
* * * *
A good idea.
If there is such a thing.
* * * *
So pleasant to have a forgettable,
Indistinguishably anonymous name.
* * * *
Pretty sad statement about life
When one’s raison d’etre becomes
The avoidance of potholes.
* * * *
To have given so much,
And it to account for so little,
Is always a humbling feast.
* * * *
Enjoy whatever mobility and simple pleasures
Your meager allotment of time allows,
For it, sooner than surely anyone prefers,
Shall one fine day be as done and done can be.
* * * *
How unfair to society’s elders
That they should be bullied aside
Buy so much un-merited arrogance.
* * * *
In at least a handful of cases,
Imagination may easily be
Much better than reality.
* * * *
Death,
A moment for which
You have vainly practiced
Far too many times to remember.
* * * *
The uncarved block
Is without voice or direction,
All potentials at rest.
* * * *
Breathe into infinity.
* * * *
Let go.
* * * *
Yes, it’s that simple.
* * * *
The wind can catch any given sail unawares.
* * * *
To be free is to be done
With the wrath of the mind.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)
© Michael J. Holshouser 2009
World Rights Reserved