Literature

I read this essay, "Valuing Poetry," by Allison Wee, on how poetry can "help us live" in times of pain and uncertainty. It's true nonsensicalifornia helps me.

How about you? Would you get out some set of images flashing in your mind, show what it means to be you, the only one with your voice and reflections, who can bear witness to your experience?

I've studied literature and I'll tell you what that means to me. Maybe it means the same to you. Reading literature is learning what others feel, how varied the human experience. New perspectives help me develop compassion and understanding about situations I could not imagine from the limited scope of my own experience. 

I was raised Lutheran, was taught that all are worthy of love and forgiveness and that judging gets in the way of the work of love.

My great-grandmother handed down this wisdom: "hate destroys the vessel it is stored in, not what it is poured upon."  I don't know.

Do some who live by hatred die in glory? Actually, I think they do. I have a reputation of staying positive.  But honestly I don't think true Justice exists. "Well, he'll get his comeuppance by God's judgment." I don't know, man.  We are on earth right now. We need to make the world a fairer place. 

Nietzsche said that justice can only occur between those with equal power positions. Can there be justice in such an unequal society? Before we can have justice, we need equality.

I know I'm idealistic, but we need ideals.