Why I love a gambler and not the schemer ....

I came across this poem today and I was blown away by its simple and stark reality....

Charles Bukowski: Gamblers All

sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, 

I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside 

remembering all the times you've felt that way, and 

you walk to the bathroom, do your toilet, see that face 

in the mirror, oh my oh my oh my, but you comb your hair anyway, 

get into your street clothes, feed the cats, fetch the 

newspaper of horror, place it on the coffee table, kiss your 

wife goodbye, and then you are backing the car out into life itself, 

like millions of others you enter the arena once more. 

you are on the freeway threading through traffic now, 

moving both towards something and towards nothing at all as you punch 

the radio on and get Mozart, which is something, and you will somehow 

get through the slow days and the busy days and the dull 

days and the hateful days and the rare days, all both so delightful 

and so disappointing because 

we are all so alike and so different. 

you find the turn-off, drive through the most dangerous 

part of town, feel momentarily wonderful as Mozart works 

his way into your brain and slides down along your bones and 

out through your shoes. 

it's been a tough fight worth fighting 

as we all drive along 

betting on another day.

Reflections from Dystopia

I revisited George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty Four" the other day and I began to ponder the modern parallels with our contemporary society. I know George Orwell died a bitter and broken man isolating himself on some remote island off the British coast and his attitude towards humanity was glum and gloomy. All this aside, after rereading his novel about the inevitable crushing of the human spirit I couldn't but help thinking and wondering if his impulse to project a vision of the world was borne out of a desire for change or inherent fear of what has become an accepted fact of human dynamics. The difference between the idea of desire and fear is very subtle. Without fear the motivation to investigate and observe the human condition is absent; without desire the need to dissect and challenge the human condition is equally absent. So is a depiction of the dystopic vision of humanity based on fear on what society has the potential to become ? or is it motivated by a sense of desire to expose and change ?
This may be a philosophical exercise on my part but I do suspect the implications for myself resonate deeper than personal superficial outcomes.
I fear my death, so this has become my personal dystopic vision of my life; however , through this fear I can find the desire to respect life and change my attitude towards the inevitable.
In society many in the western world are either guided or shaped by the media and their lives revolve around media expectations created by the media spinners. It is a constant battle to forge a vision of utopia in our midst through promoting a lifestyle of attitudes and beliefs based on a common cultural and shared understanding of a moral imperative shifting our values to suit an agenda whose source is beyond the knowledge of the ordinary person in the street. The rich and the powerful help to devise the agenda to increase their reverence towards the almighty dollar or whatever currency they support. The battle cries and the media spin of WW1 and WW2 harnessed the values of so many multitudes of helpless, innocent and gullible individuals on both sides of the government spectrums to take up arms and commit so many atrocities on their fellow species that any thinking man's grain of salt would have to acknowledge that fear was underpinning so much of the media's campaign.....and it was a fear targeting the individual. And this is just one simple, obvious and extreme example. The layers of media manipulation run deep. The numbers controlling the media's spin on reality are fewer and stronger. I like to call this the public relations of modern existence. It seems to be a harsh acceptance that what desires we have are channelled into a fear of what may become if we do not follow the code.  So to accept the inevitable, I believe is to deny the incredible..........the incredible lies, the exaggerated imaginings of conspiracies, the conjuration of an enemy, and incredible notions of success based on talentless talent and ofcourse the illusory power of master and slave.
I know money and wealth are the physical manifestations of power but even these are subject to the inevitable consequences of a dystopic vision inherent in all of  life. And the fear that triggers the misuse of power  I'm sure consumes the desire to live a contented and fulfilling life.

A Call To Bacchus

 

Oh to dream my desires and lose myself in these fires

To contrast my body with the selfless misery

Of so many souls trapped in a vortex of my imagery

I love the soothing, sensuality of it all

Makes me want to embrace myself to the core

Please don’t awaken me to this illusion

Allow me once more to fulfil my delusion

Too many times I have abandoned this need

To submerge myself under this creed

Entangled, enhanced   enriched embraced

Inside this cauldron of my maker’s face

A mask for pure lust on a week long trail

Give me your flesh and let me sail

Into the sunset of oblivion….

Image and prompt inspired by Magpie Tales. Please visit and try out for yourself.