Chapter 131 - The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)


CXXXI

Three observable tendencies that hold up in the human drama:
Most seem want the bread of life more than the bread of mystery.
They will submit to many forms of enslavement rather than being free,
And they will choose the absurdity of good and evil over the reality of chaos.

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The genetic lottery is certainly tougher on some than others.

* * * *
Even if he was able to somehow reincarnate himself,
Most Christians probably would not recognize the real Jesus
Because they only have the notion of a form in mind.

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Two thousand years … and counting.
If not this millennium, perhaps the next.

* * * *
Houdini also promised to try to returning.

* * * *
The concept of a personal god
Is the invention of a personal mind.

* * * *
All one can really do in life is pay close attention
To the many details, and let it pass as it will ever manage to do.
It is the clutching passion which magnifies the suffering.

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The newborn has no design in its heart or on its brow.
It is alone and open, so innocent of what is yet to come.

* * * *
Drift immaculate.

* * * *
May will make up any argument, use any temptation,
To persuade you its veiled reality is real and forever.

* * * *
The senses are merely specialized nerves
Designed to read the mystery as real.

* * * *
What rapture can words bring?

* * * *
For a time most cannot yet see in this unwieldy drama.

* * * *
No part remains untouched,
No matter its declarations.

* * * *
We must collectively hit the wall
For this paradigm to develop
Into anything more viable.

* * * *
Another one for the history books,
Bulky and unread as they may be.

* * * *
Believe you me, the scribe
Plenty of vanity to contend with.

* * * *
History requires your presence.

* * * *
What you believe
Has absolutely
No effect on what is,
So why believe anything?
Doubt not that it will all
Take care of itself.

* * * *
All you can really do
Is witness your version.

* * * *
You’ve got your own soul,
You don’t need mine.

* * * *
You take so much for granted
How precious that now unnoticed breath will be
When it is your last.

* * * *
Each day as timeless as the next.

* * * *
What a strange thing, fate.

* * * *
So many lack the discipline
To say no to their pleasure.

* * * *
You are the pendulum by which time swings.

* * * *
Is it Monday again already?

* * * *
Hell is filled with Hallmark holidays.

* * * *
A little advice to people who want to live a little longer:
Don’t be where others are shooting each other.

* * * *
You rush around in your calendar life,
Getting nowhere and missing everything.
Who runs time, you or the clock?

* * * *
What’s really amazing is that Mama Terra
Has put up with us so long already.

* * * *
Sickness is passed on in so many ways.

* * * *
Whose right is right?

* * * *
Insanity is its own license to cast itself
Into its own version of freedom.

* * * *
Doesn’t the suffering of existence
Make you sometimes weep?

* * * *
The point and purpose,
The meaning and reason
Is right now.

* * * *
Invasions take many forms.

* * * *
Be wary of people who want to lead you.
Their sense of direction is often askew.

* * * *
Genius pays its own price.

* * * *
Life is going to kill you.
You may as well enjoy it.

* * * *
If humanity were rational,
The world wouldn’t be in the fix it is.

* * * *
One mirage chasing another.

* * * *
You have nothing but ideas.

* * * *
Truth or consequences.

* * * *
Let it grow very still.

* * * *
So bright, so stupid at the same time.

* * * *
Amazing what you can get used to.

* * * *
Courtesy is laughing at jokes that aren’t funny.

* * * *
Can you believe sometimes what shit sells?

* * * *
Baby, I may want you,
But do I want to be with you?

* * * *
Cute is just another four-letter word.

* * * *
Why does time go so slowly when you don’t want it to?

* * * *
Whose eyes are waylaid
By the glossy bauble
Or the cleverness of a shape?
Who will always prefer form to function?

* * * *
So many of us so jaded, so cynical.
Innocence lost early on is not
Easily resurrected.

* * * *
Is the body a reflection of the soul,
Or the soul a reflection of the body?

* * * *
Alas, women never know what it’s like to pee standing up.

* * * *
The human drama, the human soap opera.
Probably just as pathetic from the opening scene.

* * * *
So many so distant,
Any surprise is short-lived,
Almost contrived out of obligation.
Self-righteousness is baptized passion,
Ambition truth, law justice, and money divine.

* * * *
How many clocks there are ticking-tocking.

* * * *
Will your quest for the higher high every reach its goal?

* * * *
How to, whether to maintain vulnerability
In a world that will slit your throat without hesitation,
That is the question.

* * * *
Whatever you call it, it is the game,
And you must play by the rules
Or die stubbornly refusing.

* * * *
News is what newsfolk choose to report
And what readers choose to read.

* * * *
It all boils down to the same thing.

* * * *
Perhaps there’s a small sliver of hope to be grasped.
But only perhaps.

* * * *
Who knows you?

* * * *
Well-trained people bring fewer headaches.

* * * *
To find some measure of happiness
Is the goal of so many unhappy souls.

* * * *
Sometimes you’ve just got to break the record.

* * * *
Does there always need to be a point?

* * * *
What a trip obligation and guilt.

* * * *
Rushing, rushing, rushing,
Always rushing off somewhere
As if all the rushing in the universe
Is going to get you anywhere.

* * * *
Clever people often mistakenly think
Those around them less clever.

* * * *
The biggest problem may well be
That we take ourselves so seriously.

* * * *
Time is the sculptor of all things.

* * * *
Even the biggest, best and baddest
Will succumb eventually.

* * * *
Don’t worry, be happy.
Don’t stress, relax.
Don’t work, play.

* * * *
Funny how so many
Require outward sanction
To support their sense of freedom.

* * * *
Don’t confuse morality and law
With what is right and just.

* * * *
Assuming there is a point to existence, what exactly is it?
If there were a point, wouldn’t we all agree what it is?
Wouldn’t that point be the same from birth to death?
Wouldn’t it be true no matter the shape or form?
Wouldn’t it be the same no matter the time?

* * * *
Usurping nature in every way,
Imagination creates its own reality.

* * * *
What is not vain?

* * * *
Take away romantic notion and what do you have?

* * * *
How many prefer words or pictures
To seeing or touching the real thing?
What an enticement imagination.

* * * *
So many artists insanely trying to create
Something that has never been done before.

* * * *
If you don’t want to see it, don’t look.

* * * *
You have to choose to be strong, to be courageous,
To have the strength to face all odds, even death.

* * * *
Is it what you want,
Or what others want from you?

* * * *
Of Y2K it will be said:
Midnight came and went
As countless others had before,
And many others no doubt will hence.
The universe will continue its chaotic order
Despite the tides of human confusion.

* * * *
Sedition being what the powers that be disagree with.

* * * *
The press of time squeezes us all.

* * * *
Not easy for the unruly mind to comprehend.

* * * *
Only the names and numbers change.
In the changelessness of the garden.

* * * *
Does that really surprise you?

* * * *
All the things you think you’re going to do,
But never really will.

* * * *
Why is it that when you have more time,
You so often seem to have so much less?

* * * *
Something’s going to come along
And make AIDS look like Pop Warner.

* * * *
How stupid that we battle about religion and spirituality.

* * * *
How well we can train ourselves not to look.

* * * *
What would the death penalty be like
If it were an eye for an eye
In the same way the eye was taken?

* * * *
Contentment is free.
All you have to do is change your mind.

* * * *
No problem being one with creatures great and small.
It’s human being that are are hard to stand.
People don’t have an excuse.

* * * *
Is the world cruel, or merely indifferent?

* * * *
With reluctant anticipation,
You watch the body slowly fall apart.

* * * *
You can count on some people
Changing as little as possible.

* * * *
Reflect upon what you really are.

* * * *
When enlightenment ceases to be a goal,
You may be closer to it than ever.

* * * *
Have you gone crazy ... or sane?
A Catch-22 in any insane asylum.

* * * *
Sometimes it seems
You must make a fool of yourself
To learn something.

* * * *
Don’t be too cynical.
Don’t be too naïve.
Strike a balance.

* * * *
So much to do and so little inclination to do it.

* * * *
Pointing out the obvious can be rather dull.

* * * *
Have fun, but not at everyone else’s expense.


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