hopelesshappiness.com

--

Twas the week before New Year, when all through my tale

Were teachers and tellers and privilege for sale;

My jobs they were hung in these months this past year,

In hopes that ridiculous might disappear;

--

Much effort was wrestled to fill up my head,

With visions and missions and doctrine to spread;

My job at the college, I cheered the parade,

Of students not learning but making the grade,

--

In banking I learned that the people don't matter,

The money is made in the Wealth-Power clatter,

As substitute teacher I flew like a flash

To open young minds for no heed and scant cash.

--

The gloom on the jest of my new-fallen woe

Oppression, injustice to save status quo,

Then what has my wandering search thus achieved,

But a miniature pay, for my dreams ill-conceived.

--

With a greedy old driver whose fists cling cash tight,

I don’t stand a chance to do Good and do Right,

More rapid than eagles my thoughts change direction,

I’ll sing and I’ll dance after years of reflection;

--

Now, Hard Work! now, Listening! now, Walking and Reading!

On, Writing! on Gusto! on, Cooking and Feeding!

To thus stop all regret! To thus stop seeking glory!

I’ll write a new chapter! I’ll pen a new story!

--

As deceived by the pretense of past by and by,

When I’ve met with an obstacle, mount to the sky,

So up to this ethos I bounded and flew,

With a head full of truth, believing anew.

--

So with greed unthinking and the old ones in charge

They demand on our paths we grab cash and live large

We are all pushed ahead and cannot turn around,

But I can expend effort, my nose to the ground.

--

I can dress up my path with my strength and my skill,

And perhaps add some Good with no fluff and no frill;

And a quiet defiance I may fling about

In hopes that those listening will question and doubt.

--

But to change our direction? To start a new start?

…All I can do is to change my own heart.

…All I can do is to know my own mind.

…All I can do is some Right and some Kind.

--

For decades my purpose was held tight in my teeth,

All it did was encircle my head like a wreath;

All this time to save face I pretended to know,

Where I'd been, where I was, and then where I would go.

--

My purpose is not and it never has been,

A limitless choice of what, why, where, or when;

Though I fancied to think that I had that control,

Tis the ‘How’ that is really the heart of my soul;

--

So I'll speak fewer words and work harder at work,

No pretense, no privilege, I'll spurn shrouded murk,

I know on my path, though it is not my own,

I can learn, I can grow, I can know some unknown;

--

With power as structure and wealth as foundation

For Kind and then Good there's no justification.

With People as structure and Kind as foundation,

For power and wealth there's no justification.

--

So I sprang to the ground with my nose to my path,

And I'll work to control my despair and my wrath.

And despite the old driver proclaiming ahead,

That it's his path I trod, I've still nothing to dread.

Keep working to Good, keep working to Right,

"Happy New Year to all, and to all a good-night.””

--

--

Twas the week before Christmas, when me and my spouse

Had the crazy idea to go buy a house;

Four decades of renting and now here we are,

Let’s pack up the boxes and load up the car;

--

We won’t tell the children, we’ll sneak out tonight,

They’ll wake in the morning but they’ll be alright;

So mamma in her ‘kerchief and I with the cat,

We packed and we loaded and started to scat,

--

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

We sprang from the car to see what was the matter,

I circled the auto and saw in a flash,

The box way up top had come down with a crash.

--

The pots and the pans on the new-fallen snow

Gave a cluster of flap to our ebb and our flow,

When, what to my wondering eyes should come then,

But a big moving truck and eight big burly men,

--

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted and called them by name;

--

"Now, Aidan! now, Henry! now, Caesar and Dex!

On, Griffin! on Garrett! on, Eli and Rex!

Load up all their stuff! Every bit, wall-to-wall!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

--

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,

So off to the new house the coursers they flew,

With the truck full of stuff, and St. Nicholas too.

--

And then with a sinking, I saw on the truck

Our daughter, in bed, still asleep, hair amuck.

So I drew up ahead, and I turned them around,

And delivered her back to her room, safe and sound.

--

Still dressed in our pj’s, both mamma and I

We’ve made our escape, late at night on the sly,

A bundle of questions we bandied about,

As we followed the troupe, we started to doubt.

--

I waved Santa down for a long heart-to-heart,

Expressing our feelings about this new start.

His droll little mouth it drew up like a bow,

And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;

--

I told him how we were afraid of indentured,

He told me no gain without being adventured;

I rued all the rules and I trembled my fears,

He laughed and he asked, “where've you been all your years?”

--

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed along with him, in spite of myself;

The wisdom of Santa, it flooded my head,

He gave me to know it's still nothing to dread;

--

We spoke no more words, but went straight to the house,

They unloaded our stuff and I turned to my spouse,

And laying my finger aside of her chin,

I said, “it’s our house, welcome home, let’s go in.”

--

Then Santa emerged, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim as he got in his truck,

“It’s clever how far from your kids you have snuck,

You might send them your address sometime before Spring.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all everything.”

--

To endeavor to look everywhere, at all possibility, is to look nowhere. Therefore I cannot pick a direction, I must first imagine or learn or be set upon a direction then personally define said direction and then convince myself that I chose it from limitless possibilities. This is Purpose as argued from the false premise that my choices are limitless or (at least) vast.

After six-plus decades, I have found that the truth is - I am wandering, within the boundaries of a given direction, at the mercy of everywhere and nowhere and everything and nothing. Course adjustments are once again my imagination redefining and justifying a new meandering after the fact. So essentially either I have no purpose or (at the very least) my purpose (as purpose) is so watered down by reality it is virtually meaningless.

Does this, (should this), invoke despair? And if so, a quiet despair? Or one that is loud and defiant? Or one that is submissive? In me, it does - I don't know if it should, but it definitely does; a despair that is mostly quietly defiant. My despair is my own. I work to share my defiance, (sometimes anger), by occasionally flinging it at those who are blissfully ignorant of their own despair; those who are drowning in their own certainty and comfort. I've not figured out how to break through their fortifications but unless I am able to get through to all of them at once, my defiance and anger is irrelevant - to everyone but me. As time goes by, I find I am leaning more and more heavily on my own quiet despair - and my imagination. To realize that wherewithal (i.e. capacity, competence, intelligence, skill, strength, talent, understanding), is in actuality imagination (I am finding) does not necessarily discourage my effort but has instead added a degree of whimsical curiosity and thus meaning to how and where I might go on this ebb and flow of everywhere / nowhere / everything / nothing.

Even if wherewithal is imagination and purpose is delusion, I believe by accepting these realities I can still find a way along my path to exercise my capacity, competence, intelligence, skill, strength, talent, and understanding to make a difference and perhaps on occasion actually do some Good. Furthermore, on this path, in my given direction, by knowing that accomplishments and failures are largely interpreted and defined by delusion and imagination I am free to move on more quickly, expending less effort on glory and/or regret. Thus my purpose (instead of the reason for my existence) has become effort unencumbered by ego.

It takes an appreciable amount of compassionate intelligence to acknowledge that a rationalization is dependent upon its foundation and supporting structure and thereby is not necessarily fact or truth. If one accepts the premise of wealth as foundation and power as supporting structure then often a rationalization comes across to another (especially one standing outside of the structure) as a manipulative ploy or an outright lie that comes nowhere close to reality. If one accepts the premise of compassionate intelligence as foundation and all of Humanity as supporting structure then often a rationalization (as reason) comes across to another (especially one within a consensus power structure) as adversarial no matter how well it reflects reality. If one looks down upon these structures from a birds eye view, one will see the wealth/power structure nested inside the compassion/Humanity structure, and like nesting eggs, inside the largest wealth/power structure are an innumerable number of smaller and smaller wealth/power structures. From a wealth/power structure, it is easier to look out and pay lip service to all of Humanity than it is to dig deep and practice compassionate intelligence. Looking closely at each framework of power there are many individuals hanging on for dear life, with no stabilizing tether to the foundation; and when one falls from their precarious perch, they may choose to crawl inward and begin climbing a smaller power structure or they may be banished to the outside. Those within a framework of power with solid roots in a foundation of wealth could choose to dig deeper in search of compassionate intelligence but more often are unwilling, choosing to remain comfortable where they're at, realizing that the necessary excavation would disturb their roots. This is most true of those in the largest of the power structures, those closer to compassionate intelligence as foundation, those most equipped to make a difference.

The paragraph below is from “The Grapes of Wrath” written by John Steinbeck and originally published April 14, 1939:

“And it came about that owners no longer worked on their farms. They farmed on paper; and they forgot the land, the smell, the feel of it, and remembered only that they owned it, remembered only what they gained and lost by it. And some of the farms grew so large that one man could not even conceive of them any more, so large that it took batteries of bookkeepers to keep track of interest and gain and loss; chemists to test the soil, to replenish; straw bosses to see that the stooping men were moving along the rows as swiftly as the material of their bodies could stand. Then such a farmer really became a storekeeper, and kept a store. He paid the men, and sold them food, and took the money back. And after a while he did not pay the men at all, and saved bookkeeping. These farms gave food on credit. A man might work and feed himself; and when the work was done, he might find that he owed money to the company. And the owners not only did not work the farms any more, many of them had never seen the farms they owned.”

This passage reminds me that property ownership is simultaneously an imaginary man-made construct and a practical reality. Property ownership (if and when it comes about) is a temporary gift that should be nourished with respect and hard work. This is personally relevant as this week I am considering making an offer to buy a house. It is an old house (built in 1836) with much history and character. It needs work. I believe the hands-on effort this house would require will help me to stay connected, but still, as a lifelong renter who with every chance rails against property ownership, its underlying mechanisms and its consequent divisiveness, I am hesitant. In 1754, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote:

"The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say 'this is mine' and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had someone pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: 'Do not listen to this impostor. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!'"

With all that said, I really like this house and the community. The house sits right across the street from a small college reminding me of the community I grew up in where I lived only four blocks from a similar small college. Walking through the campus, sledding its snow-covered hills, Saturday afternoon football games, all the students with plans and a purpose; as an elementary schooler it was my first introduction to the wider world. It feels appropriate that now 60 years later I might (in a sense) return to my childhood.

Though our search for a house started as an exercise in capitalism, this house has reminded me that I do not want to buy property as an investment; for the sake of owning property. Unfortunately though, because my whole life I have prioritized learning and growth and experience and (perhaps most damning) dreams over the attainment of wealth, I am likely unable to afford this house. We are hearing from the real estate agents that the owners may potentially be open to any offer, but the last thing I want to do is insult their parents’ legacy. Perhaps it may count for something that I am interested in taking care of not only their decades with the house but nearly 200 years of history and character. Perhaps it may count for something that I see this as a potential labor of love and as a possible legacy for who knows how many generations to come. Perhaps it may count for something that I am still dreaming…