A Poet's Journal: April 29th, 2014

April 29th, 2014

Wisdom is often accepted to stand for little in the times it is most necessary, leaving preference to the wanderings of mind that emit our notions of blame and discontent.  A phrase from Aurelius, or any other sage of the past, has at times whispered a solution to the situation at hand, having only to apply its advice and thereon proceed in tranquility, but in the end I have found myself more willing to sulk in my misconceptions, as a point of taking misfortune in place of something outside of my nature.  Have not the ways and pretensions of mind, for so long embedded in our habits, condemned us already to an easily conceivable fate?  Where we stand with a person or group depends on the attitude we take: to stand apart and go unnoticed is an aggression towards the common and the undertaken, so that we ultimately concern ourselves with those people who put forth the same pretensions.  

'Don't be carried away rashly by the appearance of things!'--For there is rarely one moment in which we can look past ourselves and give credit to another, though whatever weakness there is in applying this, brings also regret and infamy, when we were only too scared of kindness.  In every part of this, I find that my life up to this point has largely been based on unfounded opinion and pretension.

Douglas Thornton