Please bare with me this intellectual pursuit, but I must from time to time explore other options besides the depression and anxiety for which I have been plagued these past long months.
William Wordsworth commented on the intrusion of the industrial age with a disdainful eye as a hindrance to the connection of man to nature. To me, this does not merely say that we gain solely from a walk in the park the perspective on life that feeds our desire for meaning and order, rather, it implies also our interaction with one another as members of a community who are naturally bound by physical locale and allegiance to a common purpose. We find evidence for this perspective within the confines of a religious fraternity where all members share in the inheritance of the founder god who supplies all the necessary needs above and beyond creature comforts. Herein there lies the interconnection of reality, spirituality and rational thought. And so, we begin our transcendence from mere animal instinct towards a higher plain of understanding where moral character and standards of conduct lift us above the natural world. The following is my attempt to transcend all the fears of life lived on the inside by surrendering the selfish for the selfless on the outside.
Outside Myself
Outside myself
Where wind and trees collide
And God abides
I find great wealth.
In turn a wellspring
Of memory and child-like innocence
Comes calling
To ease my man made plight
Where despair and strife
Turn out the light
And knowledge put back
Upon a shelf
Recedes with age
To gather dust
And return no more
As without a glimpse out doors
Where pine and spruce proclaim a holiday
from all dissonance.
To find joy is to mingle freely
And take the path of least resistance.
