We Live the Lie

 
We Live the Lie
 
When all our hopes have been obliterated, when all that we had built has been destroyed, and all our labor through the years is seen as wasted effort, then what else remains?

Is there a child, a spouse or another whom we’ve always kept in mind—and so retained a bit of comfort, saying to ourselves that when we’re gone, those others will remain?

Or have we none of these?  Or if we do, are we so troubled by their ways—or likely fates—that there is little solace left, and only more of stress and of regret?

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We wonder how it came to this.  And then, we look around and see the falsehoods reign—and all the madness that has come from this.  We need the courage then to stay with truth.
  
The conscience speaks.  But rarely is it heard.  The winds of fashion and of empire blow. From fear and greed, we yield to these our best. The verities are lost.  The lies remain.
 
Enough!  Enough of lies, enthroned as truths.  Enough of blind obedience, saying "Yes!" The time has come for conscience to be heard. The time for saying "No!" is here at hand.

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A dictum posits that it's chance alone that shapes our lives and so decides our fates. This pardons crimes, while blaming circumstance. It leaves no room for duty, freedom, will.

Another mantra, mouthed by pundits, says, “We each are what we’ve made of our lives—misspent or shrewdly led.  Our choices make our selves.”  But in its cant, this dictum’s like the rest.

For each such dogma blinds, as dogmas do. And each is used to further human ends. And every dogma, misapplied, becomes a lie that tortures life and causes death.

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For every view, that’s been proclaimed as truth in matters human, there’s a counter-view.  And every concept that is deified begets a spawn that is of devil-kind.

Our lives are fluid, like the water, wind.  No net can capture or restrain the flow. With all the nuances and dances gone, what's left becomes—not life, but lifelessness.

We celebrate the "progress" we have made. We hail our times, our systems as the best. In doing so, we blind ourselves to truth. And so we race towards misery, sans end.

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The winds of fortune blow and take the best.  The shrewd survive—at times.  The gentle die.  In war and peace, the ills of humans thrive.  The truth is slaughtered—and we live the lie.

And those who cannot, they are trampled, torn—and then discarded by the ones who can.  For humans, like their plants and beasts, have uses.  Their labor’s needed—and their wages too.

And when it’s found they cannot contribute in work or spending, then we feel the time has come for them to die and so to leave a space for those competing to “produce”.

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From workers’ labor, as from peasants’ toil, the empires rise. The owners, bankers feast—as everything we do is monetized, and all our efforts feed our overlords.

The cynics rule.  The scammers rise and thrive.  The honest are oppressed.  The diligent, the caring—they are lost indeed. They work in silence and in dread, until they leave.

They live in fear, because they hold to truth.  They still have heart. They see what others don’t or do not care to see. They’re silenced, crushed.  Now who will challenge lies, except ourselves?

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The ones, who're humble, suffer with the meek.  The ones who work are voiceless, beaten, weak.  The ones of hubris, full of arrogance, succeed—until we all, together, speak.

The voice of conscience and of reason says, “The content matters.”   Yet, it’s packaging that sells.  The priests of falsehood sacrifice the truths of head and heart. The lies remain.
   
Enough!  Expedience and haste have blurred our sight. They've led us all disastrously astray. Enough!  Let those, who’re honest, rise and say, “It’s time to slow.  And no, we won’t obey.”

2015 June 6th, Sat.
(revised & expanded June 16th, Tue.)
Brooklyn, New York