To Walk In Harmony

One wishes to walk the earth in harmony. To sit beneath the trees, to walk near the speaking waters as they dance to the sea, to gaze from high mountain tops at the wholeness of creation. One wishes to grow old and watch ones children grow old under the bright blue sky having lived a life of peace in harmony with the planet and all living things. To spend the gift of life in contemplation and perfection of one’s inner self, moving one step closer to harmony with each stride down the path of one’s life.

But one is beset on all sides by flaming assholes.

One looks at the trees and they are not flaming assholes! Nor are the clouds nor the birds who fly with them.

But they are real. And the first time one encounters flaming assholes, be it only on one’s television set watching Bull Connor’s fire hoses or LBJ’s bombers or Lieutenant Calley’s handiwork….one is shocked. AND aghast. One’s heart instantly tries to close and harden.

But then one goes and sits beneath a tree and listens to the singing waters and watches silly squirrels frolicking, and one desires harmony and lo…it is there.

Despite the fact that still in this world, flaming assholes feel that since they have the ability to end a life that the universe has labored billions of years to bring forth….that gives them the right to. Whether it be from a hijacked airliner or from the turret of a tank that one realizes in horror…one has helped pay for.

And then some flaming asshole comes and cuts down all the trees because he somehow OWNS them. Only a flaming asshole would think he truly OWNS a tree…right? Am I right there? I mean, what the fuck?

And one notices that despite one’s efforts to live in peace and harmony, one’s heart HAS hardened.

It probably had something to do, one realizes in an ever less frequent moment of harmony…..with that flaming motherfucking asshole cutting down the motherfucking TREES!!!!

One has a realization.

One realizes that one cannot merely avoid or ignore the flaming assholes. One wonders what the fuck the Universe was thinking…as one sits under….a bush. Next to the once singing waters that are now a trail of slimy mud since they blew the top of the motherfucking mountain off to get coal so some flaming asshole could get rich killing coal miners….who just wanted to walk in harmony.

One contemplates torture, one contemplates illegal wars of aggression, one contemplates blatant fraud on Wall St designed to further impoverish poor people so some flaming asshole can buy a $16,000 umbrella stand or a new watch.

One realizes that one could slip away.

That there are still mountaintops that one could journey to and befriend and live in harmony with. Where one could ignore, or perhaps just pretend to…perhaps a monastery? Nothing bad ever happens in monasteries….perhaps there is a way to withdraw, and to concentrate only on harmony………..for one’s self.

As the world is destroyed.

One is reminded…as one picks a branch of this stupid fucking bush out of ones ear….of a line from a play…even though it doesn’t really apply, sorta…cause the guy who said it was pretty much….but I digress.

To be, or not to be–that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them.

Does one find harmony in this world by taking up rhetorical arms against the sea of troubles (that has an island of plastic the size of fucking Texas floating in it) and fight back against the flaming assholes? Is harmony ultimately to be found in battle…. in a world where flaming assholes seem to have all the power and those who merely wish to live in harmony are beset on all sides by …flaming assholes?

One goes forth to do battle. One supposes naively that this should be a simple task! If one can but point out clearly and succinctly that torture is wrong, waging war against innocents is wrong, bankrupting others so you can grow richer is wrong, blowing the tops off of mountains is wrong…..that The People will rally and rise up and stop these things!!!

But lo, one finds that there are people who will defend these things! And when one challenges them and says to them…torture is wrong! Torture should be prosecuted so harmony can be restored! Then one finds that some of these people too…..will turn into flaming assholes at the drop of a fucking hat.

One is defeated in battle. Not by the flaming assholes, but by one’s own desire to live in peace and harmony which cannot, it turns out, be found as long as these flaming assholes can find a way to actually JUSTIFY torture and war and the destruction of the planet.

One realizes one could fight one’s entire life against the flaming assholes and never even make a fucking dent in their armor of denial, rationalization and justifications.

One is confused and dejected. It all seemed so easy when one was sitting under a tree. What does one do now?

Does one find a safe spot, a comfortable spot, a spot for one’s self….and merely suffer one’s life away, trying to ignore and pretend? To sleep, perchance to dream. Perchance not. Or perchance to dream of flaming assholes that one cannot escape even in one’s dreams, once you have seen the true face of horror that they would transform this world into if they are not opposed….

A world where one can no longer sit beneath the trees, walk near the speaking waters as they dance to the sea, gaze from high mountain tops at the wholeness of creation. Grow old and watch ones children grow old under the bright blue sky having lived a life of peace in harmony with the planet and all living things. Or spend the gift of life in contemplation and perfection of one’s inner self, moving one step closer to harmony with each stride down the path of one’s life.

There are….as always….two extremes.

One can immerse themselves in the same darkness and hatred of those that they fight.

One can seek only the bliss and the light of harmony and peace, and ignore the fight.

Or one can try to walk the curved line between them.

Between joining in the fight on one hand, and still seeking harmony on the other.

A line that always curves, because the shape of things is always changing. A line that one must pay attention to, be aware of, be mindful of, if one is to stay on the line… and not stray off of into flaming assholery on the one side, or an “unrealistic” bliss on the the other.

This world is what it is. And we are but small parts of it. And being small parts of it only, we can never fully comprehend this world. Let alone comprehend the Universe that this world is but a small part of.

And so we must each make a choice as we walk. A constant choice. A necessarily examined choice. But a choice of which there is no one to tell us with unalloyed certainty if it is the right choice or wrong choice.

Each person is required to make this choice, nonetheless.

This world is what it is.

One cannot see nor understand the whole of it.

But one can tell you one thing for motherfucking sure. If we want it to be a place of peace and harmony, we have to fight for that.

Each in his own way. For harmony can only be found in one’s own heart. No one can tell one what one’s path is. (But they can tell one to cut it out with all that “one” bullshit, and one should listen when they do.)

Some through seeking bliss and seeking to spread that bliss to all.

Some through being a flaming asshole.

And some through trying to walk that fine, curved, and ever shifting line between them. To know both battle and bliss. To both oppose and accept. To fight and to love.

Perhaps in this world, this world as it is, this perfectly imperfect world…that is where Harmony lies?

Or you know……not.