PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

It is no wonder that our world is turning into a whirling junkyard when what makes our society spin is our all-consuming greed for more things and for more money to buy them with.

We have advanced far beyond crass gross materialism. No, we do not care that much for the physical things nowadays, at least not for long. What we really crave is more life, but what we actually pursue is more money to buy it with.

We long for the abstract purchasing power over consumption because, the more we consume, the more powerful we feel. We want to save up and hoard eternal life, but it is ever slipping through our grasping fingers. We would use every gimmick in the Gimmick Book to get it, yet in our vicious circle, ever more consumption is required for the purpose. And that is why our world both virtual and literal is becoming more cluttered and littered with junk and trash every day. Yes, consumers must be pleased, but for shorter and shorter periods of time. Meanwhile the trash creeps upon us, even if we do not want it, until all are suffocated.

I speak from my personal experience. If I accuse, I accuse myself. I was once lonely for people, then I became lonely for dollars because people were for sale. I accuse myself because I am a member of that particular money-grubbing race notorious for its greed, the human race.

The Animal Kingdom has its instinctive economy, and we kings of the kingdom would waste it. We would peradventure, by the mysterious facility of the dirty-green invisible hand, turn the world into a cramped, stinking, noisy trash can in exchange for a few more filthy dollars. Perhaps just enough, we might think, to buy that well-secured, secluded resort far from the main dump and its grinding rat race, or maybe some other Cause more glorious, such as that Art Studio we are dying to get to, or even a more altruistic one, for instance that Fine Cathedral.

But just a few more bucks is never enough, nor is the Cause we serve altogether sufficient. No, I think we want eternal life, and chase after the symbolic tokens that seem to account for it. Our accounts, therefore, fall always short of the purchase price, for tokens have no intrinsic value and are a vain substitute for life.



Is it not amusing that a man might have enough to survive for the rest of his life, just enough  to putter in the garden, to write poetry and prose, and to play his accordion, yet his competitive instinct rages on and the pathetic fellow is bedeviled and haunted by the craving for fame and fortune?

I wonder if a moose would in preparation for the usual long winter eat itself to death if summer suddenly became the only season. I think not, but a man might consume himself to death somewhat like that humungous man in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" who gorged himself until he exploded, leaving a terrible mess in the public dining room.

But let us give our fellow the benefit of the doubt and examine the record. Here it is. He puttered around in his garden this morning, labored for three hours over one line of his poetry, had lunch, then played a few polkas on his accordion. While playing, a great idea for a article on practical gardening came to his mind. Excited, he put his accordion in its case and began to write furiously. But his enthusiasm soon waned, for he began to think, Why bother to write this if I don't sell it?

Well, our poor writer went to his bookshelf and pulled out his old writer's guides and searched for gimmicks to impress editors with. Then he threw away what he had just written and started all over again with the gimmicks in mind. After a week of painstaking work, which he did not enjoy at all, his article was completed.

The man submitted his article to The Gardener's Digest. It was accepted; he received a $500 check; he was thrilled. However, just between us, few people besides the editor read past the first paragraph. It was the usual boring piece on gardening accepted by editors who think they know what the public really wants; many of them are frustrated writers who write articles about how to write and how to get articles accepted by editors like themselves. Our gardener knew that, and he had proven his point: he was for once a professional writer.

To make this story short, the man died immediately thereafter. He left his daughter his cottage and a trunk of poems he had been writing over the past fifty years. Many of the poems found therein were the transcendental ones which had grown from his mundane gardening experiences. As you have probably surmised by now, I speak of one of the finest poets the modern world has ever known.

Fortunately for our careening world, our humble poet had curbed his greed. Furthermore, only once in his life had he succumbed to gimmickry, for a measly $500 to prove his point. But what was the secret of his big success, if not a gimmick? Well, he left a note in his diary, the diary auctioned off last week for three-million, two-hundred-thousand dollars, wherein he declared he had been struck by something John Ruskin had said at Cambridge about the creation of fine art:

The very primary motive with which we set about the business makes the business impossible. The first and absolute condition of a thing's ever becoming saleable is that we shall make it without wanting to sell it. Nay, rather with a determination not to sell it at any price if once we get ahold of it.