Why I rarely mount my soap box about the "Big" subjects.
Mainly, I just don’t seek to steer society by the mass. Honestly, I despise sociology and the dive in reason that occurs when people cease to think as individuals and let the movements of the mob do their thinking for them. I think a greater change would come on its own if only people starting using their own minds instead of leaning on the shoulders of the mob for direction.
I do try to implant small ideas in the minds I meet. I do try to help people see the beauty in the things we take for granted, not by loudly demanding they take a second look at anything, but by drawing people in a casual stance and putting the spot light on humanity at its most honest and undecorated, which is to me when we are the most beautiful. I write poems about a simple pint or a glowing cigarette butt and hope people learn to start noticing the beauty in other little things once they’ve been led to one such thing in words.
These things lead to the bigger idea, the beauty of truth. Of course, I’ve written more obvious poems about that idea, too (like Majority Rule, for one).
Why do we need horns sounding and propaganda to listen to a voice? Why do humans follow show over reason? Put a charismatic liar and an honest dork on the debate platform and people will ALWAYS follow whoever has the whitest smile or prettiest lies. Why? Why must we always throw ourselves at the loudest drama and see truth and reason as dull? There is so much exciting depth of beauty and so much promise and potential in reality. A person slouching on a couch makes the most electric lines and angles to draw, where a poised and posed model is often devoid of movement or great lines. But, the masses will always seek the fake and posed over the realistic. I see so much complexity and beauty in the honest recline and such flat lifelessness in the perfectly posed, but then I am odd. I love truth. I cannot accept popular opinion over my own reason. I love the art that my own eyes see beauty in, not just whatever must be great art because I’ve seen it on a tie.
These things are connected. Whether we see the fake and flashy as beautiful, or see the organically vibrant things of reality and truth as beautiful; that is DEEPLY connected to the part of us that values a catchy slogan over an incontrovertible syllogism, or prefers a pretty (and socially stagnating) lie to a truth that can lead us to a way of improving our world. In fact, these traits are one in the same.
So, maybe my interests seem like only a few dull grass blades and a section of dirt, while others are trying to move forests. But, in my mind I know that the trees cannot be rearranged upon a hill to where they have no roots. Humanity will never vote wisely, share without prejudice, or grow in wisdom until one fundamental thing has spread… a love of truth, a deep and passionate yearning for the real and honest, and an admiration of reason and legitimacy.
I am grateful to those people who work towards this in more overt ways, but I think the subtler methods are equally important, even if they are aren’t as glamorous or noticeable.
If you shape the stream bed, the water’s flow will alter itself. That may make me the mud in a world of sparkling water, but that suits me just fine. I’ve never been fond of the spotlight anyway.
I do try to implant small ideas in the minds I meet. I do try to help people see the beauty in the things we take for granted, not by loudly demanding they take a second look at anything, but by drawing people in a casual stance and putting the spot light on humanity at its most honest and undecorated, which is to me when we are the most beautiful. I write poems about a simple pint or a glowing cigarette butt and hope people learn to start noticing the beauty in other little things once they’ve been led to one such thing in words.
These things lead to the bigger idea, the beauty of truth. Of course, I’ve written more obvious poems about that idea, too (like Majority Rule, for one).
Why do we need horns sounding and propaganda to listen to a voice? Why do humans follow show over reason? Put a charismatic liar and an honest dork on the debate platform and people will ALWAYS follow whoever has the whitest smile or prettiest lies. Why? Why must we always throw ourselves at the loudest drama and see truth and reason as dull? There is so much exciting depth of beauty and so much promise and potential in reality. A person slouching on a couch makes the most electric lines and angles to draw, where a poised and posed model is often devoid of movement or great lines. But, the masses will always seek the fake and posed over the realistic. I see so much complexity and beauty in the honest recline and such flat lifelessness in the perfectly posed, but then I am odd. I love truth. I cannot accept popular opinion over my own reason. I love the art that my own eyes see beauty in, not just whatever must be great art because I’ve seen it on a tie.
These things are connected. Whether we see the fake and flashy as beautiful, or see the organically vibrant things of reality and truth as beautiful; that is DEEPLY connected to the part of us that values a catchy slogan over an incontrovertible syllogism, or prefers a pretty (and socially stagnating) lie to a truth that can lead us to a way of improving our world. In fact, these traits are one in the same.
So, maybe my interests seem like only a few dull grass blades and a section of dirt, while others are trying to move forests. But, in my mind I know that the trees cannot be rearranged upon a hill to where they have no roots. Humanity will never vote wisely, share without prejudice, or grow in wisdom until one fundamental thing has spread… a love of truth, a deep and passionate yearning for the real and honest, and an admiration of reason and legitimacy.
I am grateful to those people who work towards this in more overt ways, but I think the subtler methods are equally important, even if they are aren’t as glamorous or noticeable.
If you shape the stream bed, the water’s flow will alter itself. That may make me the mud in a world of sparkling water, but that suits me just fine. I’ve never been fond of the spotlight anyway.
posted by TwistedNoggin at 12:57 PM
2 Comments:
You are brilliant.
Ah, Grasshopper! you have learned well.
Implanting small ideas in small minds is all that can be hoped (and a difficult enough miracle to work in those whose lives are pulled by bread and circuses, whose depth is a raster of electrons across a screen (portraying some sport), or at best, the thickness of a sheet of newsprint).
The masses are known for seeing no more than the surface, and the surfaces being of greatest importance, always; of having itching ears, eager to hear what they want to hear, always; a lie will be sweeter than the truth, always.
People, for the most part, are intent on following their own muse amid sparkling shallows, rather than searching deep waters, seeing the shimmer of sun on ripples than the "bigger picture" of the stream which feeds the ocean. "for narrow is the gate, and straight the way, and few there are that find it"
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