How Much?

I stood on the deck of the ship
And looked out into the vastness of blue…
Sea and sky merged at a distance
And land was nowhere in sight.

The moment was a teacher.
Qualities and Quantities–
That had mattered in the presence
Of people, and things, and seductions that beckon–
Had vanished into this vast space.

Here I stood by myself
In a vastness that was devoid
Of distraction, of other, of past and future
It was the now, but it seemed disinterested in being time.
In that solitude, I stood empty
Of all the things that we believe, matter.

This brief acquaintance
With myself as a being
Whose identity and plans made no difference to existence
Made me see that titles and accomplishment, having and proving
Matter only in small, confined spaces.
Otherwise, existence is enough
You are enough.

The Design of Deep Change

What if I don’t speak?
Say nothing of the absurdities
I see around me…
The filth, the corruption,
The lies masquerading as truth;
The blind waxing eloquent about a ‘vision’;
Junk dressed up as rhetoric
Trying to convince us all of its creativity;
The capitalists who try to sell you the myths
That they’ve invested in.

What is there to lose?
A key to my only door?
The voice that can speak to injustice?
My dreams of a better tomorrow?
The ground on which I stand?
The roof above my head?
The answer to a future question?
The courage to exist?
The certainty of continuity?
My faith in the good?

Creativity is the primeval urge for action.
Yet what we call action–
That which is propelled by desire and hope
Or fear, anger, and intolerance
Is but a reaction that brings about effects…
Mere changes on the surface
That we mistake for a revolution.
The actions that matter are those that are deferred.
To witness, to wait, to watch, and to listen
Are the design of deep, transformative change.

Corruption

When limits are not respected
Knowledge becomes corrupted.

When falsities are not questioned
Beliefs become corrupted.

When intention is not reviewed
Action becomes corrupted.

When words become weapons
Understanding becomes corrupted.

When love becomes selective
Emotions become corrupted.

When the vulnerable are not protected
Power becomes corrupted.

Book of Short Stories

We’re each a book of short stories
Events, encounters, tragedies, and joys…
Disappointments and regrets
Passion and pain…
Gathered with us
As the dust of memories.

Why do we carefully collect this dust?
Why do we sustain its presence?
Perhaps we intuitively know
That the answers we seek
Cannot be found in what happened
They’re realized in witnessing what remains.

Wisdom

There was a storm outside my window this morning.
Furious, raging, threatening and violent!
It came with force and blew its fury
It slammed, it banged…my windows wobbled.

The trees are now swaying to their natural rhythm
The storm has passed as quickly as it arrived
The trees survived. The storm couldn’t destroy them.
They’ve seen many storms over many seasons.

Learn Rebellion

Where everyone is hustling
Seek nothing from your time.

Don’t try and capitalize it.
You can never profit from your own slavery.

Choose solitude over noisy company;
Invalidation can be a valuable gift.

Let the agitated
Have and live with the last word.

Do the illogical…
And free yourself from the prison of opinions.

Lose purposely.
It’s better than celebrating mindless wins.

Reject the world that is designed to ingratiate itself to you
Seek honesty. Choose difficulty. Cherish the frictions.

Can We?

Isn’t there creativity
In creating technologies
That can create anything that humans can?

Isn’t there creativity
In developing a simulation
Of human intelligence?

Have the expectations from human creativity
Now reached heights
That cannot be humanly scaled?

Is this the last we are seeing
Of human agency and creativity
At and for human scale?

Can we now find the creativity
To articulate a definition of creativity
That is free of pride and desire and ambition?

Can we return to a way of seeing
That is free of filters and grotesque forms
That hype up beauty, wealth, knowledge and power?

Can we stop creating the Gods
That we couldn’t find?
Can we become seekers of truth again?

Can we reclaim the necessary-
Our leisure, our slowness, our honesty;
And walk away from our creations of the unnecessary?

Can we pause the accolades and celebrations
And ask if there is a higher creativity to be found
In no longer creating creativity-sucking simulations?

What You Can Do For Me

Free me if you must
From smallness
Save me from shrinking
Liberate me from fear
Educate my desires.

Inspire me to greatness
Reveal to me the finest
Move my attention
From fault to feature
Bless me with generosity and kindness.

In a haze of abstractions
Give me the vision to see the real
Make visible the invisible
Give me the courage to choose faith
When I’m tempted to choose what’s easy.

Love is not an Affair

We are sensual in nature
Divine in essence
And spiritual in aspiration.

We succumb
We surrender
We refuse to stay fallen.

We also have a mind
That reflects and contemplates
As deeply as it distorts.

How does one explain
The silence of the spirit
When chemistry commands?

How interesting it is
That love’s roots are bodies entwined
Yet it grows to branch out and be free.

That chemistry of a racing heart and a lingering gaze
Are the stirrings of a love that must silently begin
By going undercover so that it can eventually grow.

Love’s journey is to be long and arduous.
Even as it is rooted in silence and sensuality
It learns the art of selfless self-expression.

In a world designed for dependencies
Love’s spiritual force can only be realized
By discovering freedom within belonging.

Framed

What are you testing through life?
Whether what passes as truth
Is indeed true?
What if what you seek as knowledge
Only remains a theory… a pleasing perspective?

What would it take for your search to wane?
A health scare? Financial troubles?
Loss? Boredom? Purposelessness?
What if these are not as trivial and as fleeting
As an inspired perspective often makes them out to be?

What if despite being false and unreal
They are more powerful than your own weak faith?
What if this grand quest for truth
Is nothing but a false hope framed by the very
Premise by which you have framed the world?

Is truth something we find?
Or, is truth a realization we arrive to?
Let your frames- worthy as they may be- crash and shatter!
See what remains.
The uncreated and the undestroyed must be true.