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Tag: choices

Your Feet Know the Way: benison

Published on April 21, 2025

Your path begins there at your feet;
the first move is the hardest one.
Until the last step is complete
you will not know the task is done.

Along the way, you’ll see the world;
you’ll wonder why, and how, and when,
and sift through miles of sand, and pearls,
each whole day through, and then again.

What answers will you seek, or find,
no one else knows. They are your own.
If you will learn, or lose your mind,
depends on you and you alone.

You have a choice, with every breath:
to love or hate, to lose or gain,
to see rebirth in every death,
to seek out joy or dwell on pain.

May you find what you need to do
to build more bridges where you can,
so that when your time here is through
you don’t regret taking a stand.

Your path begins right here and now;
your feet already know the way.
You need not wonder where, or how,
but only when: and that’s today.

21 APR 2025

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White Hat Testing

Published on April 18, 2025

Too many people only seem to do good deeds, or even want to be caught doing them, if there’s a reward in it: remuneration, recognition, or at least reputation. Even saints want to get in good with their patron (or patrons, male or female, mortal or divine, immanent or imminent, true north or morally ambivalent). And that’s good, in some respects, because it means of all the good deeds that need doing, at least some of them may get done. Because there’s always somebody promising something to those who believe in something enough to do something stupid about it. And usually, the feed doer doesn’t find out too soon that the eternal reward promised isn’t as advertised. But by then, for better or worse, the good happens.

But it doesn’t last. Because good, when not done just for its own sake, with no attachment to the results, and absolutely no personal gain in the achievement, takes a lot of energy to sustain. Chasing after an elusive jackpot celestial lottery gets tiring, and what was once a glowing, white hot burning flame of righteousness becomes a dying ember, fading in the last few moments of encroaching twilight. The good you must do becomes the good you may do. The good you may do leads to the good you can do. The good you can do melts away into the good you should do, which is worn to the good you don’t to, which slinks off in the dark as the good you won’t do.

Like compliance with a standard, a good that stays on the floor when it could be the ceiling is like the good people who do nothing, letting evil thrive and deepen. How good is that?

It’s not really about morality or ethics, is it? After all, most of the most obvious guides to self-preservation, like “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or “every cause has an effect which is itself a cause,” don’t need sophisticated theology or sociology to explain them. They are in fact, self-evident. You just have to know where to look, and how far back toward the beginning to start. Give it a little time. You’ll get it. Anyone can. Anyone who tried getting out of their own way does.

Who are the “good guys”? Look for the ones not taking credit.

18 APR 2025

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The Same Breath

Published on June 27, 2024

So many choices
in a moment’s tiny span;
is it destiny?

No matter your direction,
the path will stay beneath you.

The door is open.
You stand at a great threshold;
which way do you move?

There is just air on both sides.
Never take the same breath twice.

27 JUN 2024

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Causes Worth Fighting: Petrarchan sonnet

Published on May 31, 2017

We each must choose the causes worth our fighting
from a great myriad of pointless quests
designed to breed confusion in our breasts
and keep the fuse inside us from igniting.

The frivolous is made to seem exciting;
it titillates and leads our thoughts astray.
We lose momentum somewhere on the way,
and valor turns from acts to talk and writing.

And then, the courage fueling forward motion
begins to wane, reduced from flame to spark;
we stagnate, turned from blood and flesh to stone.
What starts as dedication and devotion
slips fast away from bright to cold and dark;
our coalition lost, we fade, alone.

31 MAY 2017

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Shape the Now: cyrch a chwta

Published on February 17, 2017

It’s yesterday we cling to,
that we prefer to what’s new,
choosing safety, not what’s true:
life goes on, us with it too.
It has no rules; memories do,
and don’t shift the world and skew
the facts used to shape the Now,
which somehow is left to you.

17 FEB 2017

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The Wrong Side

Published on January 13, 2009

We all want to be the victor,
to believe that right is always on our side;
and to those who would oppose us,
any kind of sympathy we would deny.

Keeping score, mind on the numbers,
so we never lose an inch of precious ground;
‘Cause there’s only so much of it all,
and never quite enough to go around.

It’s a constant state of vigilance,
just making sure you always end up on the top;
only fools and weak kneed cowards
dare suggest that anyone would dare to stop.

At what price, this precious victory?
To win, at last, and be alone and free;
with no one to share the moment with,
no one to dare to doubt or disagree.

You know, the world is full of choices
and each one of us must live as we decide;
So before you burn your bridges
best make sure to not be stuck on the wrong side.

13 JAN 2009

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Life is What You Make It

Published on January 10, 2006

When I was a kid, I had a record (yeah, a plastic disk that spun around and was activated by an actual needle, producing sound waves that were amplified as electric signals through hot glass tubes and pushed out into the atmosphere through big ol’ speakers, not headphones) that included Guy Lombardo’s “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)”. I always liked the song and what it seemed to suggest … for those who think that Tim McGraw’s song “Live Like You Were Dying” represents some new breakthrough in psychology, I would suggest checking it out. Anyway, I was sitting here watching a family of cardinals dining at the bird feeder in the backyard and enjoying the sunshine, and came up with the line “there’s no use in complaining, son, when life throws you a curve / we each get what we ask for, or at least, what we deserve.” And the rest of the song sprung (as in “spring has sprung / fall has fell / winter’s here / and it’s colder than … usual) from that.

Now, I suppose each of us chose
where we were born and raised,
just like we pick which songs to play
and what work fills our days.
I know it’s true that fortune moves
in strange and wondrous ways;
the lessons we require are given
’til the learning stays.

Good times and bad both come and go,
one day leads to the next;
you never know what’s coming
or just what you can expect.
There’s no use in complaining, though,
when life throws you a curve;
we each get what we asked for,
or at least what we deserve.

Life is what you make it
Don’t waste time knocking around
Don’t let your dreams split at the seams
Don’t let those teardrops drown
The sun that keeps on shining
Every morning until night
It may not be a perfect day
But it will be all right.

Geography and circumstance
are not just random luck;
and it’s no accident you drive
a Beamer or a truck.
Blue collar or accountant,
each has their own row to hoe,
and either fights the current
or learns to go with the flow.

There’s not much point in judging, then,
how the world has passed you by;
we each serve our own sentence,
a life’s span, and then we die.
So live like you want life to be,
and dance to your own drum;
who knows? tomorrow you might find
your lucky number’s come.

Life is what you make it
Don’t waste time spinning around
Don’t let love bloom around you
Without chasing a bit down
The sun will keep on shining
Every morning until night
It may not be a perfect day
But it will be all right.

10 JAN 2006

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