I sat down and put this poem into visual form. Hope it means something to someone out there. Find the text below.
Essentially, what I’m saying is - Give up the thought you are special. Just be happy you are here, now, alive and taking it all in.
Sorry, feel like a comedian explaining his joke.
“Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.”
- King Solomon (maybe) Ecclesiastes
I think two things can be true at the same time. That’s the “specialness” of human experience, meaning making. You are both special and not special. See my other poem about how special you are.
You might proclaim - but you contradict yourself! Yes, I do. I justify myself with the words of Whitman …
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
What you need to realize is what Whitman says just prior to this …
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
—Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself” in Leaves of Grass
It’s the argument that says the “what” (who you are) doesn’t matter rather what matters and means is “how” you are here in this world. Your resonance and manifestation. We are all connected.
Think the corporeal vs the ephemeral. The body vs the soul. The hardware vs the energy source.
Essentially, we humans once boiled down are just 6 elements. A handful of “stuff”. A few elements. Basically carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and a sprinkle of some other fairy dust. You can hold it in the cup of your two hands. However, it is our manifestation of this, how we dance, that makes this clay turn to gold.
We aren’t special in that we just live and die among an immensity we can’t even conceive. We are special because we are part of that immensity, necessary to its survival. I’m asking you to dive into that immensity. Swim there, not on the lonely, mirror infested island of Id that you’ve built for yourself.
It’ a paradox we all need to understand deeply within ourselves. Only when we turn away from ourselves, our ego - do we begin to exist. Less is more. The way is, not the way. He who knows the Buddha, does not know the Buddha.
It is precious to realize your ultimate meaningless here and now, as an individual. It hurts but if you pop and poop yourself out the other end, you’ll be flushed out into a beautiful garden of Eden where everything is you, and you are everything. Strawberry fields forever … that’s special.
“Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life.”
― Edward O. Wilson, The Social Conquest of Earth
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So, you think you're special, eh?
Cast a 1,000 ships with your glance,
Know Pi to 3,000 places,
You've smoked Cuban cigars with Fidel and
even kissed the Pope's ring.
Well .....
You ain't.
Ain't special and never gonna be.
You are a fly on the wall
maybe killed, probably not.
You are an accident of nature
the decisions of a decision of a decision
and then the night,
conceived
like everything is
wet and tired
but not special.
Oh sure, you are top of your class
Yeah, you've got a room full of medals
and even have people who'll buy you beers,
poor sods ...
you aren't special -
you're a random number,
a smudge on a blackboard
the smell of death unnoticed
in Michelin restaurants.
Sorry, I got to give you the bad news.
You are not special.
Everyone will forget you
once you're gone.
Everyone will move on
once you're gone.
So alas,
quit trying to impress.
Cut up that card - American Unimpressed.
Don't think about what you'll wear today -
for nobody gives a shit (except that old, you).
Dance, let your beard grow.
Laugh, let your tits sag.
You were meant to be forgotten.
An ink mark in a ledger
never to be found.
But you are here.
So just be happy with that.
Happy for the moment,
you aren't going anywhere.
You aren't special.