no, I am not in the throes of an existential depression
(that’s generally status quo, considering the questionable state of things:
gas is nearly $4.00 a gallon, and I don’t even drive; children can’t read and
their parents can’t even care; people can’t love, can’t think, can’t hear,
can’t see…stuff like that, you know?), but that is the first line of one of my
favorite poems by the ever-esteemed Emily Dickinson. she was great at pointing out the obvious,
things like Nature is pretty awesome and that people are pretty lame.
take: Death is the common right of Toads and Men…
Why swagger, then?
haha, awesome. first
of all, I like that she put the toad before the man, but the rest of it - that’s
really just the way it is. you can strut
your stuff as an ass or an Ass, but in the end both the ass on the field doing
his master’s bidding and the Ass in the city doing the bidding as a master
face that dreaded Common Lot one day.
where did Humility take the wrong turn, I wonder?
we all strive to set ourselves apart in some sort of stratosphere that
makes us better than our neighbor who’s better than their neighbor who’s better
than their neighbor ad infinitum. i
don’t believe for remotely a minute that one person’s not, it’s just that some
of us do it so much better than others.
tell that to the Toads.
the “Nobody” poem goes like this:
I’m Nobody! Who
are you?
Are you – Nobody – Too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d
advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog-
To tell one’s name – the livelong day
To an admiring Bog!
Awesome.
