there is no such thing as reward
external reward is more illusionary than illusion itself
inside the vacuum grows
filling the substance of empty space
with the dust of purpose
as it morphs into the next step
there is no time for reward
there is only the next step
There has been an unusually high rainfall in our area of late.
The other day I drove past a massive tree perhaps more than 12 – 14 meters high that had simply fallen over across the road and workers had hacked away at it in order to move it out of the way of the oncoming traffic.
It was a strange sight to see. The tree still looked very healthy and the leaves were lush and full. The cross section of the cuts revealed a perfect trunk with no blemishes visible anywhere. It was wonderfully healthy … except that it was fallen and now dead.
What had caused the tree to fall and die was neither weakness nor old age but in fact, health, vitality, success and significant stature.
This once majestic tree now lay with the bulk of its glorious trunk cut up in smaller ugly chunks, thrown together into heaps waiting to be unceremoniously hauled away probably for firewood or maybe even just to be dumped on some smelly refuse heap.
What had happened was that the rain was so unusually heavy that the ground had become totally saturated and could no longer support the weight of the huge tree with its strong root system that had held it secure and upright for decades.
In the heavy rains it had simply lost grip and it toppled over with luminously healthy grass still lush and abundant clinging to the base where the tree had once broken through the soil.
Water is a life giver and a life sustainer but under these conditions it was the agent of death to a seasoned and majestic life form.
The tree had done everything right. It was a triumphant survivor, a perfect specimen of life and abundant health. But now it seemed that it was exactly this great prosperity and the weight of this undisputed glory that had caused it to fall.
I couldn’t help thinking that if it were not so large and healthy it might have still be standing today.
The race is not to the swift, nor does the battle always go to the strong.
Bread doesn’t always go to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding.
Favour does not always come to men of skill, but circumstance, time and chance happens to all.
in the disorder
chaos works its logical way
a crack at the hub and foundations shudder
distortion shrieks
vibrations mock
a ripple ensues
and balance explodes
a patterned twist
as substance argues with itself… and others
horns lock and teeth snarl
scattering fragments rip
the crack of feathers is heard
and mountains melt in cool silence
insanity reigns
or so it appears
as finite men grasp at infinity
there is sense in the senseless
chaos is not without order
yet order cannot be seen… for now
for time is thrown in
that sinister ingredient
time waits for none
but all must submit
a line has been drawn
but soon it will end
and for now,
all we can do… is bend
stuff happens
stuff happens now
other stuff happens after
also before
stuff happens now
so that other stuff can happen later
either way
stuff happens
and it’s happenng now
in fact stuff that happens is neither good nor bad
it just feels that way
especially when it’s us who pay
and there is no bad
until the good doesn’t seem to come
and there is no good
until time has spoken
but time is silent
for now
and only time really has a view
and only time will tell
but usually not now
and time has no feelings
just like the stuff that happens
but we have now
it’s all we have
and we can make stuff happen
we can make stuff happen now
it drifts overhead
a shadow creeps across the ground
a chill shudder
a shiver sets in
a black shape passes ahead
passing, stopping, moving on
gone
like a glitch in the matrix
a shift in time
a time in shift
a time in shock
will they notice?
those who see will watch and wait
most will not
see
Time can seem ‘bad’ or ‘good’ to us. We all go through these periods. I know I do.
I had a thought once (I know, it’s hard to believe, but humour me here for a bit if you don’t mind)…. . . . .
My thought was simply that maybe time does not really exist at all.
And I mean literally.
I am 51 earth years old now and if I presented you with a faded, brownish, monochrome picture of me as a new-born, perhaps in my mothers arms, with family posing and cooing around the delightful little bundle in her arms you might say, “There, that’s clearly proof that time exists!”
And being the incurable, grown up delightful little bundle I am now my response might be, “That’s not evidence of time you’re seeing, that’s evidence of change.”
There’s this delightful TED.com talk by Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ (only 5 minutes long) and I urge you to watch it.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/arianna_huffington_how_to_succeed_get_more_sleep.html
To me it exposed something I saw as a chink in my own impenetrable armour (“impossible” I heard the masses cry – ha!). I was amazed to see (and eventually admit as a profound truth for me as well) that we do tend to try sell ourselves as being far busier, far more important, far more in demand, even far more ‘successful’ than we really are by not so subtly throwing in how busy and stressed we are when others simply ask us how we are doing.
“Hey, good to see you! …. how you doing?”
“Busy, dude, BUSY – It’s been a hectic month, … wow! … I only got in at 1a.m. the other night, then I had to get to this meeting by 7:30……” (etc.)
… and of course, all this is totally acceptable and socially appropriate behaviour for the general long-tailed rodent genus Rattus in the competitive imaginary consumer kingdom of Rodentia.
I don’t know about you, but it struck a cord with me anyway, …. you know, that semi permanent, ever tightening, multi-strand cord around my neck that is more commonly known as a hangman’s noose.
Personally, I really battle with sleep. 4 hours in a night is a good night for me usually. The feedback I received from a clinical psychologist not so long ago was that my mind is much like the first 5 minutes of the start of the Comrades Marathon. Masses of bobbing heads (teeming bits of data), all pressed together, scratching, pushing, vibrating, knocking, and aggressively bumping into each other, pressing feverishly and relentlessly towards that very far off goal. I was also told that most normal people receive and process data similar to that of a regular garden hose pouring out a steady, manageable stream of clear, ordered water. However, her description of my personal process was likened to the attachment of a high pressure, 360 degree rotational sprinkler at the end of the hose and turning the tap on full! (haven’t spoken to her again – far too many other drips to attend to these days 
)
Some researchers say that sleep is the way we process all the data stimulus, events and intake for the day. My disturbing thinking on this was that if this defrag is interrupted it can surely cause the hard drive to function less than optimally. (and I’m not even starting to get into the issue of virus, Spy and/or Malware infestations – we can save that for some other phishing expedition).
So, here’s the next adventure I’ve set for myself (and for me it’s indeed a gruelling task). I am going to sleep much, much, more and beat my ego brutally into submission by answering the “how you dong” with the much more accurate, “not much” sprinkled with the titillating condiment of “no more than I really have to” and topped off with the just desert of “sorry, can’t rush, … gotta stay.”
watchmen watch
they are positioned where they can sit and see
they watch with their eyes but they hear with their hearts
their heads remain still
though the eyes may only flicker
the mind races
watchmen are seers
the eyes in their heads see the world going round
and they spin with it
they watch as seasons are formed by time
they watch as time in turn is transformed by seasons
they see the roads more travelled
as well as those less
they watch who travel the roads
those who come and go
they see the roads and the loads on them
loads carried in
loads carried out
they see that these too form seasons
and seasons form them in return
they watch as men travel in and out
