We have come through that terrible time when we were the
slaves of money and marketing-brainwashing and the stupor of being governed by
a stuporous bureaucracy.
We have come through in tatters and ruin, not in triumph,
but that is not a bad thing.
Enough of triumph.
Only children think you can win anything.
Wiser, we have come through, wiser to our own childishness,
and wishing for something else.
Let us not take planning as a substitute for doing, let us
not take bureaucracy as a substitute for cooperation. Let us choose a chaotic life over an orderly
morbidity. Let us choose freedom but not
over compassion. Let the good people of
the Heartland join hands with the good people of the Coasts for the sake of the
good hearts that they share however differently articulated.
Let us go fearlessly
towards peace, towards a brave peace, towards a poetry of courage
and a gentle honor.
Let us understand death again, so that we can be alive.
Let us build only as much shelter as we need and no more.
Let us clothe ourselves only as much as we need and no more. Let us eat only what we need and no
more. Let us remember the making in all
that we need. Let us remember the body
of the earth in all that we partake of.
Let us celebrate life and create a culture of life.
Full of good and happy things, full of honest work that we
can be proud of, in which the good person is understood and let to flourish in
that goodness. In which our animal
natures are not teased and tormented for
the sake of culture and money and glory and leadership.
Let us not tease and torment each other.
With marketing. With
pornography. With entertainment. With fantasies that lead us to destroy the
earth in their pursuit. With social
competitions that are empty and destructive, with the dire infection of
consumerism. Let us not inflict it upon
each other.
Teased and tormented we are, with the idea of being a
leader; with the idea of business success; with the idea of sexual domination;
with the fear of each other; with the images of ideal bodies that we are
supposed to look like in order to be accepted, loved, safe; with the
withholding of approval until we conform to a dead obedience; with vague
threats of a misery and poverty and darkness if we do not also strive to
consume the earth as fast as possible. Let us not inflict this upon each other.
Let us walk free, run free, walk under starlight again, in our own humble and utterly unique and fragile bodies, among animals, as one of them again.
