I used to want another’s talent on the guitar, whats-his-name’s confidence, Joe’s kindness and skill in bringing scared people out of their watchfulness. I coveted qualities in others I couldn’t find in me. Shakespeare miseried over this, saying that with what he did best he was contented least.
Is my little finger jealous of my thumb, or the beauty of the left nostril that it would just love to slide into? Does my ear covet my vision, my eyes the back of my head whose beauty it can only imagine? Does my daunting liver wish it had the power of the adrenals, the beauty of the kidneys, the freedom to run away on world tours like the blood does all the time, while the liver has to stay in one place slogging away day after day for a lifetime?
Do my knees on the church treadle want to be my hands clasped in prayer, or my ankles my hips way up there closer to the action? Does my left cheek write odes of love to the right cheek about wanting to grow a beard someday together? Does my wondering mind have dreams of glory about being inherently sure of itself and issuing orders with authority, where compromise or indecision is punishable by law? How about the pyloric valve wanting to be part of the limbic system making decisions about who gets what when and how much?
Maybe every cell longs to be another and feels jealousy and resentment now and then at being what it is and doing what it does so that others get fed or educated or the big break that will never come its way. Maybe just being the best cell for the job is not enough. Maybe some cells get to talking and decide to try other stuff and because they’re not particularly gifted at other stuff they fail and get depressed and blame one another and start fighting among themselves over whose fault this is, it was stupid to think they could be brain cells or heart cells, they lack the legitimacy, the pedigree, the tradition, the savvy and just inborn talent.
Does the brain wish it was the waves of mind or soul, not based on cells at all but free to wander and wonder and issue commands at will? A seep of nothing with the authority and ability to become something if it feels like it, while the brain stays locked up in a chamber connecting circuits like some damned telephone operator in the old days. There HAS to be a better way. The brain wants to play classical guitar or the French Horn, not just direct the fingers or lips or lungs. It longs to be the feet running free, or the fingers fitted together to make a church and a steeple and there’s all the people. To BE the fingers and not only shuttle the sensations of the fingers to the correct sockets. To be the eyes, and not just interpret the light and dark it mainlines to the brain demanding interpretation and translation into color and meaning, for God’s sakes!
What if one testicle fell in love with the other and wanted to go steady? How could that be done? Would that make them gay? Does a testicle sometime wish it was a cervical vertebra? Does a clitoris dream about growing up to become a penis, or does the penis long to be streamlined and become a clitoris all pretty and perky on endless auto-fire, never again having to swell to thirty times its coldwater size to go blindly seek a one musket ball glory, and then keel over?
Does the microcosm of our body reflect the macrocosm of our life’s longings?
The Rule Maker and the Dreamer
For the rule maker nothing is ever enough,
everything too little , too late.
Rule maker, picking up a ruler,
wields constant influence and interference,
controlling lives of those enjoying a dreamy flow,
those forgetting to look at the music,
just playing their heart out.
When questioned rule maker’s reply is,
Don’t ask me, just do it right !
it’s the rule.
Dreamer begins, everything is really good,
then then rule maker takes over,
(that’s probably bad)
Conclusions, unfortunately,
both comfortably at home in me
What a great start ,
that’s probably bad.
How in the world
did this ever get written ?
I burst out laughing at te end of your comment, out of recogition. Thank you!!!!
Jack