CONSPIRACY THEORY

     Well versed in rhyme and meter, he’d proceed
     To turn a sonnet out most every day,
     Giving exigencies of form the lead,
     Surprised to find out what he had to say.

     He praised the magic of this mystic verse
     That urged him to discover in his mind
     What only its contrivance could disburse,
     Miraculously fashioned and designed.

     He therefore rightly would refuse to claim
     Full credit for the poems that came forth:
     The form and he were partners in the game,
     Collaborators in the verse’s worth.

          Platonically, both Form and Mind conspire
          To extricate True Beauty from the mire.

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FUBAR

for Ken Burns and THE WAR

   Yes, Jesus had it right, and Gandhi, too,
   And all those other saints and sages who
   Have shown us that the only righteous way
   Is peace and love: the One Law to obey.

   For once we set ourselves above another,
   Forgetting they’re our sister or our brother,
   We violate the law of harmony
   That should prevail throughout humanity.

   Such discord and dismay erodes our souls
   Casting us in a pit of fiery coals
   That hatred, wrath and vengeful fury fans,
   Subverting God’s first optimistic plans.

        Though given freedom and then shown the Way,
        We fucked up royally and went astray.

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CURIOSITY

     Though curiosity may kill a cat,
     And many a human has discovered that
     Poking our noses into mysteries
     Precipitates unreckoned miseries,
     The boldest of our kind are still inclined
     To scratch what irritates an itching mind,
     And if that means we send a probe to Mars,
     A long step toward exploring distant stars,
     Then we’ll apply our ingenuity
     To gratify that curiosity.

     If only we might be as curious
     About what makes our kind so furious
     Right here on Earth, and learn to quell our rage,
     Not worship Mars but start the Aquarian Age.

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WHY HIGHER EDUCATION?

When you come to college you enter the realm of “Higher Education,” the aim of which is to cultivate the higher capacities of your mind.  You are here to develop your mind because mentality is the most distinctive characteristic of human beings.  “I think, therefore I am,” said Rene Descartes, the philosopher, yet he spoke for all human beings, possessed uniquely among earthly creatures with brains that can wonder and ponder, speculate and suppose, analyze and theorize, imagine and create.  “What a piece of work is a man,” exclaimed Hamlet, “how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties.”

When you come to college for a “liberal education,” to study “the liberal arts and sciences,” your proper aim is to liberate the potentials of your mind by activating your latent powers for thought and action that lead to wise deeds: to the realization of what is valuable for yourself and others.

Although you may harbor a different conception of college that simply reflects the curricular program and tallies course requirements to be checked off, that concept reflects the letter but not the spirit of Higher Education—which is really about the growth of your mind.  You should view each course you choose or are required to take, in both your general education and your major/minor programs, for how it will exercise and develop one or another mental skill, one or another cognitive or affective faculty of thought, as well as how it will inform you with not trivial data but significant knowledge.

College can initiate and accelerate this kind of mental growth in you, but college ends in a commencement, not a conclusion; which is to say that college, rightly undertaken, prepares you to continue learning and developing your mind, autodidactically, directing your own course of learning, for the rest of your life.

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FOREVER AND EVER

    With relatives and friends so near their ends
    Or having lately passed to the Beyond,
    She sought a way that truly comprehends
    Our Fate yet skirts at last that slough, Despond.

    Is there some way to see or to believe
    That everything we know is not for nought,
    That even though we find we cannot cleave
    To earthly life, another may be sought

    And found: eternal life and consciousness
    That’s cosmic in its comprehensive scope,
    For how can life be tolerable unless
    Such knowledge is more certain than mere hope?

         I told her that Eternity is nigh,
         Here now in life, and also when we die.

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ON RIDING YOUR TRAIN OF THOUGHT

Write essays to make up your mind. 

An old saying goes: “How do I know what I think till I see what I say?”  That my seem silly, at first, and an excuse for merely blabbering, but my experience proves that rather than trying to ponder a subject in silent contemplation, figuring it out “in my head” abstractly, my thinking proceeds much more clearly and coherently when I speak or, even better, write. 

This way, sentences begin to emerge and connect to subsequent sentences, building into paragraphs, taking shape tangibly, available now for review and revision.  This way, a train of thought travels along a track, moving from station to station, paragraph by paragraph, toward a destination unlikely to be known until it’s reached. 

To essay means to try or to attempt.  To write an essay is to venture forth on a journey, eager to find out where your roving mind will take you and what unforeseen discoveries and revelations will emerge as you travel.

Grab a pad.  Pick up a pen.  Sit somewhere comfortable and quiet.  Listen for the inklings of a notion.  Then set your hand in motion to verbalize what’s flowing from your mind.  Begin.  Keep going.  And see where you arrive.

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CREATING A GLOBAL WISDOM CULTURE 

(continued)

How does one, then, “create” a culture?

One doesn’t, I suppose; rather, many like-minded, like-spirited people do—by concurring in their values, assumptions, beliefs, practices, customs and mores.

The first challenge for creating a wiser culture, though, is to envision better behaviors for human beings to exhibit, alone and together, behaviors that contribute to the most desirable ends we aim to achieve, expressing the values we exalt, such as these:

•    Honoring the essential dignity of fellow human beings (unless their own undignified behaviors forfeit their innate esteem)

•    Honoring the well-being of the animate world—the biosphere—within which our species has evolved, the supportive matrix of our own flourishing, yet inherently precious with or without our presence.

•    Developing the potentialities of human intelligence and capability as fully as possible, both individually and collectively.  We are an evolving, emerging species— still in our collective adolescence, some would say, not yet mature in both wisdom and deed.

Therefore, one may contribute to creating a wise global culture by learning and practicing humane and intelligent behaviors with respect to all living beings. 

The chief motive for doing so is the awe and wonder one may feel in realizing how marvelous the Cosmos is that has brought us and all else into being.  Hallelujah!

A foolish global culture—the one we find ourselves mired in—produces not wonder but woe.

Coda

The task is to become wise—despite present difficulties—and try to build a culture in which wisdom will not only be possible but will be the norm, normal.  The world is what it is.  Considering everything that has gone before, it couldn’t be any different.  So there is no point regretting or recriminating.  But there is a lot of point in making the next moment better—and the next and the next.  Our culture may be slow to change, but our culture is not our enemy.  Our culture is, in fact, a direct reflection of us— at least the us of yesterday.  We must help our culture grow and mature, help it mirror the wisdom-seeking us of today and tomorrow.

—Copthorne Macdonald, Toward Wisdom, p. 130

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