5.6 Self-directed

by Eric Chaet

The best & worst people originate great breakthrus:
that grain shall be raised, & beer brewed
that thread shall be spun from fibers, & cloth weaved
& wheels & axles & harnessed horses connect valleys
that poetry shall be written in the language of teamsters
that the Earth is not the center of the universe
that everything is moving in relation to everything else
that spinach shall be available in Wisconsin in February
that rockets shall explode off launch-pads
bearing intricate sensing & relay satellites & devastating bombs.

They join parties
& manipulate whoever can be manipulated,
& kill, if that’s how to get the power
to rule all Russians, Chinese, or speakers of German,,
take over the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, Black Africa,
India, the Ohio Valley, Texas, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia,
the oil or steel industry, the Church, the government,
southern Asia, the Middle East, the future.

They organize enterprises
no authority will accredit.
Their work is not documented properly.
They don’t know what they’re working on,
or how they’ll survive—for years.
They’re scorned by family & friends,
imprisoned, or they waste away, forgotten.

They become the most famous & richest
or spend their lives in obscurity, a joke among neighbors,
vulnerable to attack by thugs inflamed by rhetoric
whose motives
they can’t even imagine the necessity of imagining.

Almost everyone else
almost everywhere,
almost always
is thrilled merely to learn how to operate
within the rules laid down by mothers & fathers;
by stockholders, owners, executives;
mayors, sheriffs, sergeants;
ministers, priests, medicine men, viziers, experts.

They prefer to rule, unknown, from behind desks & office walls,
& to enjoy the power of money, fine cars, & airplanes,
& ingenious communication devices & services,
& to control healthy youths, clueless, eager for acclaim.

They doubt the efficacy
of everything they’ve ever tried:
it seems to be thrown back in their faces,
only wasting their laughable stock of resources.

Repeatedly, they wonder,
Have they lived their lives deluded?
Should they have conceded
that the way things ought to be can’t be?
Should they have just used
their blessed or cursed self-awareness
to become a professor, maybe, or producer of some comedy,
platitudinous governor of a state, author of a thriller,
distributor of clever toys, software, pesticides, oil, underwear?

They believe in nothing but results,
some only in the bottom line,
the best stuff, others’ submission,
some in changing everything for the better for everyone—
or in the dogma of some idealist
now scorned for having failed—
success in the name of the ideal the justification
for endless tyranny & endless terror against tyranny.

They are smug in triumph—
til brought down
by competitors, or simply by the exhaustion
of their own ingenuity & energy,
continuously opposed
by the surly foot-dragging resentment
of those whose affairs they command.

Or they are sad, discouraged, frequently frightened
(after exhausting every self-accusation & doubt)
recalling (as they knew from the start):
that there is no one but themselves
to do what must be done
without which, the worst continue to gain the most,
while the best gain the least—
& those born into suffering struggle merely to keep from dying
without ever knowing what it is to thrive,
harassed by misunderstood early impressions;
by weather, rodents, insects, bacteria, viruses;
by the insults of properly costumed, paid-off enforcers
(persuaded by those who use them
as machines of production & consumption
that they’re free, & smarter than the rest of humanity);
& by outlaws, enraged, or cynical & sly,
with no sense of loyalty to the species
into which they happened to be born
without being consulted.

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Pictures:
Lenin, Clive, J.P. Morgan, Washington, Mao,
Mother Teresa, Stalin, Socrates, Hitler