"Man, I didn't want to grow up to this."
So we have all these people, and they all seem to be pissed.
So many people and they all seem to have... something amiss.
Many of these people, their concerns are just... entirely dismissed:
By other people with the same problems who somehow look at these perfectly normal people and react: "I have been nixed!"
These problems are pervasive in our memories and experiences and on a metaphorical wall they are fixed;
And yet the root causes are consistently misinterpreted, and ultimately missed.
And the result is we are betting everything for the sake of getting our cathartic and revengeful fix?
That is being delivered to us by people that if they were to meet us, would utterly reject us and loudly hiss?
And if that gamble fails I will be the one to pick up the scraps, and mop up the piss?
Man, I didn't want to grow up to this.
I got nothing of value to say. Just know that, as someone 10 years older than you, I feel your pain and I'd hope you'd never have to go through all this. I hope my kids will inherit a better world than you have.
When things seem terrible, but there is nothing I can do, I remind myself of this story:
A poor Chinese farmer once had a horse run away.
His nosy neighbor came over as soon as he heard
saying, "How awful for you, how can you work the farm
without the horse?"
The poor Chinese farmer simply replied,
"Who can tell what is good and what is bad."
The next day the horse came back bringing
seven wild horses with it and the neighbor came
around that evening and said, "Oh, isn't that lucky!
What a wonderful turn of events, you now have
eight horses!"
The farmer calmly said,
"Who can tell what is good and what is bad."
The next day the farmers son tried to break
one of the horses to ride, but was thrown off
and broke his leg. It required setting and binding
and he could not work on his father's farm in
his condition. The neighbor sadly pronounced,
"How unfortunate for you: you will not have
your son's help around the farm for several weeks.
What a catastrophe!"
The farmer replied,
"Who can tell what is good and what is bad."
The following day, the emperor's guard arrived.
They came because the Emperor decided it was
time for military conscription. All eligible men
would be drafted to go fight in the Emperor's
latest border war. Because of his broken leg,
the farmer's son was not carried off by the army.
Cool story, although it seems to be more about individual good or bad luck while my poem is more about the wider society.
Your poem stands on its own.
This is a story that I wanted to share, because it has been helpful to me in the past.
I've found the parable is more applicable to society as a whole over a long period of time than to individuals.
From an individual perspective, there is no silver lining to unnecessary death and destruction.
But society is surprisingly resilient. The great depression was followed by the New Deal in America. World War 2 was followed by economic expansion. The atomic bomb was followed by international cooperation.
Perhaps we will see a green new deal and universal basic income in our lifetimes.
Rightly or wrongly, I grew up jaded by the sheer quantity of stupidity I saw in the world and developed a fairly cynical outlook that I maybe haven't entirely grown out of yet. What I thought was ridiculous back then seems to pale in comparison to the circus that is our news cycle today.... I can only imagine what it must be like growing up in the midst of all this nonsense.
Having said that, I have found one of the most enduring, meaningful, and ultimately fundamentally true pieces of wisdom I have ever come across to be one that I was first taught at age 9 - the Desiderata. You may have already come across it, and you may not yet have the life experience that might drive home some of its truisms, but still, I hope it helps you along your journey.
>tmw you're some 14 year old growing up in this world and are incapable of doing anything about it other than see your future get continually worse instead of just growing up and focusing on yourself on a personal level
Also, it's been a while (few months) since I've seen anyone make any poems here.
Also, I assume this thread is decently relevant.