Image by Tom Staziker, Pixabay
Dear Readers,
My previous post, “October Lament - 2021,” required some mending.
Here is the revised version:
October Lament - 2021
How could your hearts be led to think of us as you do?
How could your hearts be led to think of us as you do?
As pariahs to block, to censor, to control, to shame.
Everything we have felt or thought or done or written supports the opposites—listening, openness, autonomy, encouragement.
What you call boundaries, we call impenetrable barriers around your hearts.
You issue ultimatums—your way or no way.
Then you tell us we are the ones wanting to harm you.
We share our knowledge because we want to help protect your rights.
You share your knowledge because you want to help attack our rights.
We show courage in upholding our values because we believe standing tall is beneficial to society.
You discourage us from upholding our values because you believe capitulation is beneficial to society.
You tell us to comply or to stay home, no matter what.
We tell you we shall resist and go forth, no matter what.
You call us selfish for making people uncomfortable.
We call you selfish for not valuing discomfort.
You call us dangerous for resisting.
We call you dangerous for submitting.
You accuse us of following extremist dogma.
We accuse you of following destructive propaganda.
You accuse us of ruining our relationships because we assert and defend inalienable human rights.
We accuse you of ruining your relationships because you deny and attack inalienable human rights.
OUR voices raise in pitch, in volume. Our bodies shake, not with rage but with disbelief and concern and the pain of discovering YOU seek to mold us into people who comply with authority in every respect, even with rules we find deeply immoral and damaging to individuals and to society.
YOUR voices raise in pitch, in volume. Your bodies shake, not with rage but with disbelief and concern and the pain of discovering YOU seek to mold us into people who comply with authority in every respect, even with rules we find deeply immoral and damaging to individuals and to society.
We see our insistence on asserting human rights and integrity as constructive, compassionate, and humanitarian.
You see our insistence on asserting human rights and integrity as destructive, rude, and selfish.
We seek to show you how cultivating deep respect for human rights and integrity achieves the best results for all.
You seek to show us how cultivating deep respect for human rights and integrity achieves the worst results for all.
We invite you to join us in supporting constructive and humane authorities by using unbiased researchers’ data analysis and true facts to try to persuade you.
You exhort us to join you in complying with destructive and inhumane authorities by using the corrupted authorities’ propaganda and outright lies to try to shame us.
We keep turning toward humanity.
You keep turning away from humanity.
No matter what path YOU ultimately choose . . .
WE will keep turning toward humanity.
We do it for ourselves. We do it for you. We do it for our elders and our children and our grandchildren. We do it for posterity.
Reasonable boundaries act like good fences: They make good neighbors.
Impenetrable barriers, on the other hand, make it impossible to communicate, to collaborate, to share. They make authentic and meaningful relationships impossible.
How could your hearts be led to think of us as you do?
~~~
Mending Wall
BY ROBERT FROST
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/150774/robert-frost-mending-wall
~~~
This is the Work of Happiness!
Kindred spirits, please share this far and wide.
10/25/2021, 12:56 PM, 1:13 PM, 1:23 PM, 1:28 PM - Made a few improvements.
10/26/2021, 3:13 PM - Changed one word.