A Thought Provoking Poem
7/19/04
For someone who doesn't think he likes poetry, I seem to be running across several poems that appeal to me of late. Hmm, maybe I should actually, ya know, read some poetry, instead of just running across them in other things I read. But which poet? Is Lao Tzu considered a poet? 
Anyway, here's one that is quite thought provoking, right at the end. This is from:
"The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper I mean.
The one who has flung herself out of the grass.
The one who is eating sugar out of my hand.
Who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down.
Who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention.
How to fall down into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed.
How to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
Life is just too precious to waste it all working. True, I view the project I've been working on at work for over a year now as a mountain of effort that will result in a pebble of utility, which will then inevitably be declared a "success". True, my life is too busy with consuming work, regardless of how it seems ultimately nearly fruitless, and with having a two year old at home. These days I find it extremely difficult to pair an hour with the cognitive abilities needed just to write a blog post. Somehow though, for the first time in four weeks, tonight I've managed to do it. You may be thinking all I need is a vacation. While that is undoubtedly true without question, it takes the short term view of this.
My perspective has changed quite a bit in the past three years. Though they say parenthood is enough to do that, I also have the profoundly dismal post 9/11 job market and the Buddhist Dharma contributing to my change of heart, such that I cannot really tell which is most responsible for my changing attitudes towards life and a life of work. The post 9/11 job market dealt the death blow to the startup that gave me the last job I really loved, and then left me in the situation of just having to get whatever job I could. My lot was better than many, I was finally able to do it and stay in my chosen industry, but I hated that job even before I actually started. It almost goes without saying that my expectations from a career have been lowered. But I'm in a better job now. I like the work I do, and for the most part the people I work with. But as I said the near futility, vast inefficiency and waste of the project have killed any real enthusiasm I had for its success long ago. When it's done, I think it'll be hard to point to anything about it to feel good about, but for the fact that it's done.
To state the obvious, we don’t have to hunt for food today. We work for money to use to buy food that is raised on farms. Money then, is survival. But there has got to be a better way to get it and lead a more balanced life. Damned if I know what it is though. Even if it would be possible for someone who is single, it's definitely out of the question for someone with a family.
Maybe I need a day off. I mean really a day off -- not another weekend of toddler chasing. If I had it, it would certainly be too short and I would be too busy enjoying it to really stop and enjoy it.
Everything does die at last and too soon.