Chapter 130 - The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)


CXXX

Oh, plague upon the capricious, fleeting, whimsical moment,
Which doeth perfectly endure forever its eternal way,
All the while presenting an ungraspable reality
To its myriad voracious components.

* * * *
How often no comment is the best comment.

* * * *
If you must ask what the point is, maybe there isn’t one.

* * * *
Another mark, another piss in the indifferent sand.

* * * *
Yet another hamstrung persona.

* * * *
So many people worry about past and future lives
That they aren’t paying attention to living this one.
The tire only hits one spot at any given moment.
Be here now whenever your attachment allows.

* * * *
Why do you even bother?

* * * *
Evolution and creation really have the same definition.

* * * *
What vanity lies derelict?

* * * *
May as well give them something to whine about.

* * * *
What compassion I feel for the children of tomorrow’s morrow.

* * * *
This has long since become a world where the innocent are guilty
And the guilty saunter scot-free to the echo of roaring applause.

* * * *
You run around accomplishing so much,
Leading your vain white rabbit calendar life,
Missing out on so much you cannot even see.

* * * *
When faced with immediate danger in nature
An instinctual survival response will take action.
Humanity now faces great danger from many fronts,
And yet is unable thus far to discern a moderate remedy
Because the problems facing us are so beyond
Our instinctual or intellectual capacity
To confront, much less solve.
So we pretend there is no problem
And will deal with it piecemeal, as is our way.
What a heritage we leave the future.

* * * *
Though you may have done it times beyond counting,
You cannot remember what sound it makes each time.
Attention to all the many details is always challenging.

* * * *
Transcend bitterness.

* * * *
“Tis is a shame it is this way,
But sometimes you must choose
To lie, cheat, steal and even murder
If you wish to carry on in this silly theater.
No body’s forcing you to do anything
That you couldn’t refuse to do.
It’s all about collusion.

* * * *
He who dies with the most toys
Leaves a lot of clutter for others
To sort, clean up and throw away.

* * * *
Those who wander beyond good and evil
Can wade through both righteousness
And sin unscathed and untouched.

* * * *
How can anyplace not be considered home
In an existence founded upon transience?

* * * *
How easy it is to take life for granted,
As if its dreamy, timeless nature is forever.
Have you done with it all you wish to do
With no regrets worth remembering?

* * * *
What can you give back
Which has never been taken?

* * * *
Those who aspire to a comfortable, indolent life
Will likely not find these thoughts entertaining.

* * * *
No matter what you have
Drunk, eaten, inhaled or injected,
You have always been the point of reference.

* * * *
We are all stuck together on this spinning orb,
And so many things we do impact many others.
We are no longer isolated as were our ancestors.
Sink or swim, we are all in this time of man together.
How long can we afford the pride and avarice
Which brought us to this epic juncture?

* * * *
Evolution is godness unfolding as it wills.
Mutations are merely new branches of exploration.
You are a reflection, a morsel of that one mind
As it witnesses, with great detachment,
Its eternal sojourn through consciousness.

* * * *
We can take and take and take until we consume ourselves,
Or we can discern the art of balance and become
Guardians rather than destroyers.

* * * *
Be content and sip the nectar of godness.

* * * *
You cannot be what you are not, nor do what you cannot
You must adapt to what you are and find contentment
In the adventure you are destined to experience.
The dream of life is not untroubled for any,
But it is more formidable for many.

* * * *
The list of things you won’t do again
Seems to get longer and longer.

* * * *
The age of exponentiality.

* * * *
Another misguided superiority complex.

* * * *
Did you write this?
Do you remember when?

* * * *
We all have our little libraries
Where books are brought and berthed
To look impressively intelligent,
So many never read.

* * * *
Even though your body has never
Even for a moment remained the same,
You are attached to the idea of its continuity
And the identity with which you bind it.

* * * *
It is a decision each must make alone.

* * * *
All political distinctions are arbitrary.
All boarders are manufactured.
All laws are man-made.
None are real.

* * * *
Ask for nothing and what you need
Will be there when you need it,
Even the most appropriate death.

* * * *
The ancients of every geography
Devised conceptual paradigms
To explain the mystery of existence.
None will ever fathom the unfathomable,
Yet it is the nature of consciousness
To seek immortality in a time
Which can never be.

* * * *
Those who may someday read these writings
Will travel a maze which will remain fresh
No matter how many times it is read.
That is the nature of eternal fare.

* * * *
You are that eternal reality which is irrefutably,
Undeniably, undoubtedly, unconditionally one.

* * * *
Unless consciousness gets a grip on itself,
Unless it gains insight into its temporal nature,
The course of the time of man will come to an end.

* * * *
You can never go back, and must wait for forward to come.
And there you are, through it all, the same awareness,
No matter the endless chatter of passing passions.

* * * *
Will we entertain ourselves into extinction?

* * * *
Standing on any given beach,
Watching just one portion of a shoreline,
How many waves have crashed through the eons
In just this one place, this one small corner?
Stretch the heartbeat across Eden.

* * * *
What can any creature know of another’s journey
But through empathetic extrapolation of its own?

* * * *
The pursuit of the highest is within.
All else is vanity and vexation.

* * * *
What is your existence or any other’s
But a set of perceived recollections
In which you reap either pleasure
Or suffering projected into time?

* * * *
Grappling with godness is the old
Push-the-rock-up-the-mountain schtick.
Completely foolish, meaningless, irrelevant,
Yet as fated a drive as that for food, water and air.

* * * *
The moment you want anything from any other,
You are easily mesmerized and seduced
By the alluring sway of maya’s veil.
Tis the game of life and death.

* * * *
The moment is uncalled for.

* * * *
Can you really take care of another
If you cannot take care of yourself?

* * * *
How enticing it is to reminisce one’s life to others,
But are most very interested for long, if at all?

* * * *
Is humanity really that much more
Sophisticated than a cluster of maggots
Driven by patterns they have no control over?

* * * *
Life is dust imagining its form real.

* * * *
Some are better than others,
Of that, there is little argument.

* * * *
When you understand the kneading of evolution,
What’s the problem with acknowledging your
Ancestors way back were hairy primates,
And even further back, a soupy slime?
Bread takes a bit of time, you know.

* * * *
How can anyone not be humbled
By the infinite vastness of the abyss?

* * * *
All manifestation is like a flame soon spent.
Yet that from which all originates is the eternal fire
In which all creation rises and falls ever and ever again.

* * * *
The scale upon which humanity plays
Is only a thin sliver, a minuscule portion,
When  contrasted with that of all creation.
Our unending egocentricity is unwarranted.

* * * *
What grief and bother is saved
When a problem is solved early on.

* * * *
Persona is humbled by realization,
Liberated by complete surrender.

* * * *
Perhaps this time you will learn.

* * * *
The dreams of godness may as well be infinite,
But through it all, there is only one reality.

* * * *
Vanity, vanity, all is vanity,
From beginning to end
Again and again.

* * * *
What is this drive, this tendency
Of identifying oneself as anything?
Who perceives what they actually are
But they who inquire deeply into the mist
And discover the clear way home.

* * * *
How can there be an end to time
When there was no beginning?

* * * *
No word will ever become the thing
No matter how many times it is asserted.
Godness is not the sound of consciousness.

* * * *
The steam wafts spontaneously
As does the sparrow’s twittering song,
The slight breeze, or the far distant super nova.
Humanity waxes and wanes in dreamtime,
The controlling nature of the linear mind
Unwilling, unsuited to comprehend
That its resistance is laughable.

* * * *
You are a habit unto your Self.

* * * *
It is all in the eye of the perceiver.

* * * *
The rich build their huge, desolate piles of gold,
Taking, hoarding, giving only to take more and more.
Withered souls, barren existence, envied only
By those who do or would do the same.

* * * *
Your perfection is not for the senses to discern.

* * * *
Before any origin, you are.

* * * *
More can becomes less, less more.

* * * *
The genetic lottery is tougher on some than others.

* * * *
The bodymind is a receiving unit.
What you are tuned into is the play
Of your temporary, temporal existence.

* * * *
The notion of a personal, living god
Is the invention of a personal, living mind.

* * * *
All anyone can really do in life
Is pay very close attention
And let it pass as it will.
It is the clutching passion
Which creates all the suffering.

* * * *
One grows weary of the body
And its many ignoble features.

* * * *
Who to believe?

* * * *
Some seem to need the laws of others
Because they have no clear insight
Into establishing their own within.

* * * *
Is there anything more bothersome
In this so-called civilized world
Than a sticker on a new item
That will not peel easily?

* * * *
How many ways we exhibit
Our dread of the world?

* * * *
No matter how it is rationalized
In one orderly context or another
Everything is totally arbitrary.

* * * *
Death is not a choosy beast.

* * * *
How often technology is more about amusement than necessity.

* * * *
You may possess far more than you deserve
If you cannot appreciate a few breaths of clean air,
A saunter along a winding mountain path,
The warmth of the afternoon sun,
Or the free, precious gift
Of life in general.

* * * *
Are words unspoken better said.

* * * *
Personal responsibility, an often tough road, indeed,
But one some, for good or ill, must travel
To care for those who will not.

* * * *
Is coming to grips with one’s mortal fate ever easy?

* * * *
When does one and one
Not equal one?
When all is said and done,
And all that is left is naught but one.

* * * *
Whatever its raison d'état
Any given mind plays out the neural thunder.
To give over to the unknown, to be eternally thunder-perfect,
One must reject all that is known, and the innumerable vain pretensions therein.


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The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)
© Michael J. Holshouser 2009
World Rights Reserved