Occupation

Occupation

  by Bruce Toien

A linking of arms

Against the brusque rush

Of hooves and batons

Beating on black Lexan shields

Meant for defense …

Against defenselessness.

 

We feint back

And the line holds,

Face to visored face

With helmeted brothers and sisters

Black clad in the night,

Servants of order …

Whether eager or heartbroken.

(It’s not you, but the machine we’re fighting)

 

We are the grass under old tarmac,

Growing through sunlit cracks

Crazing the lifeless black …

Asphalt.

We are tender green vines

Twining up through

Imposing dead towers

Of steel and glass,

Ozymandias monuments to mad avarice:

Rapturous, seductive, euphoric …

And deadly.

 

Yes, a rootling can split a rock

Yes, grass can push through

The brittlest pavement.

Life will not be denied,

As it probes

Patient and persistent …

Reaching for the light.

-:- Bruce Toien

How to Stop the Empire and Keep Your Day Job

How to Stop the Empire While Keeping Your Day Job by Dan Kinch - March 18 2012



Pretty funny, and he makes some good points... #1: "Don't work so damn hard" --- Ha!   He starts into his list at 5:16 if you want to jump ahead ~

Sensitivity Counts

An Excerpt:

The Upside of Being An Introvert (And Why Extroverts Are Overrated) 
             by Bryan Walsh - Time Magazine, published Feb 6, 2012 - Full Text 

            ..."Yet he pushes through the constraints of his temperament because the social value of lecturing and speaking--of truly connecting with his students--trumps the discomfort his introversion can cause him. Little calls this phenomenon Free Trait Theory: the idea that while we have certain fixed bits of personality, we can act out of character in the service of core personal goals. The key, he explains, is balancing three equal but very different identities. There's our mostly inborn personality, the one that wants us to be introverted or extroverted; that's the biogenic identity. There are the expectations of our culture, family and religion--the sociogenic identity. And then there are our personal desires and our sense of what matters--the ideogenic identity.

               An introvert like Little could live in a way that satisfies his nerves, never leaving the library, but then his ideogenic self would starve. He'd miss out on doing what matters most to him, even if doing it occasionally sends him into a cold sweat. "Am I just going to let things wash over me, or am I going to strike out and change and grow and challenge?" says Little. "The answer depends on what you want out of life."

             So it can be for all of us introverts. From the moment we wake up to the second we go to sleep--preferably after relaxing with a book in bed--introverts live in an extrovert's world, and there are days when we'd prefer to do nothing more than stay at home. But while our temperaments may define us, that doesn't mean we're controlled by them--if we can find something or someone that motivates us to push beyond the boundaries of our nerves. I'm happy to be an introvert, but that's not all I am".

           -excerpt by Bryan Walsh/ Time Magazine - link to full article here