Ambition can make one more so, ambitious to the extent, in myself, I felt cremated with jealousy. Made small, inconsequential, mean and evil of intent. By the talent/genius/works and words of others. Rendered charcoal tendentious.
Yet offered the opportunity to write and teach, I became something else. Nascent at first then growing, weed or tree, in the darkness of my envy. Now I remember Edward Steichen’s remark, “ . . . the best photographs remain unknown on processing house (mill) floors.” He was then Director Of MOMA’s Photography Department and author of THE FAMILY OF MAN: exhibition and book. Obviously in previous times of chemical & silver photography become currently a tsunami of images, digital.
The same World submerging, is true by words, as well, now flooding; no paddle canoe or ark.
“GOOD, BETTER, BEST” being a ruse employed by merchants of greed not need. And none in reality being more consequential than another but just one more singer in the choir/chorus of Creation. In & of itself the glory not the singer since all, if honest, would attribute creation to the Author of it inspired/conspired. Not eclipsed, but illuminated - incandescent - kindled road flares burning through the common pavement, a path, not THE PATH! Going where no path was before; making plain the highway of joy, wide and obvious.
Oblivious, anonymous, I remain inconsequential, muttering and maundering, as politicians are want to do. Save in my case lacking any ambition other the joy of knowing I am, briefly, fully human, alive & joyous. Acknowledging creation goes on with or without my voice in the choir; here or above.
Ambition leads most often to addiction; never filled, crying more - More - MORE! The rictus of greed is bottomless; consuming everything in sight, cannibalistic.
It is not by false humility that I speak but earnest and sincere celebration for all the voices I hear and see. Even those of my Enemy who I was suggested to love instead of smite. To forgive seven times seventy, and again, and yet more, in particle replica of what I experience as The Creator. The revolutionary, anarchist, evolutionist, impelling all life to move forward and be.
My ‘enemy’ tells me, through inconvenient terms and behaviors, what may well be their truth; but not mine. In the process informing me more about they who would and will strike me dead, should all negotiations fail.
No one wins a war, the cost is too high! The innocent, the poor, those with nothing have less in consequence the contest. Those who advocate conflict or inflect preemptively strife are bored and ignorant of love. . . .Or profit from it.
We are one family. And no soul is either one gender or the other. None superior, or has the exclusive truth of our origin, or destination; were it so there would be no rape, pillage, war.
"There is no way to peace peace is the way" - Mahatma Gandhi + A.J. Muste
"When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment he needs help. That's the message he is sending."
“Why rush? Our final destination will only be the graveyard.” - Thich Nhat Hanh
130319 05;38 cremation
© 2013 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved
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