Poem: The first note from "The Student Enoch"

Depressive angst and cynicism.
A continuous stream of disappointment and self-recrimination.
Each avenue of hopeful thought, stopped in it's tracks by a cold, wet, towel to the face...
a towel drenched in the tears of sorrow, and spitttle of malicious glee.
Destination found to be non-existent.
Path found to be made more difficult by intent.
A dead wish.

An endless string of broken promises to myself.
Rejection at the center of all feedback.

Every noble deed found empty.
Every kindness withered to insignificance.
No open doors as others shut,
No rising of new hope.
The box of idiots digging into reality.

You need pills.

Smiling buyers paying me too little,
Smiling sellers charging me too much.
Friends a million miles away, in mind and heart.
Foes smell blood, and reap joy in the carnage of my life.

Nothing left to offer,
no where left to go.
No one values you enough to take a chance,
No one cares enough to offer one,
because you have nothing they want.

They'll take a way my family's shelter this week.
My employers will scoff at my misfortune,
It's no one's problem but my own.
Become that which I hate.

Live off the scraps of regret and remorse.

Deflect blame towards myself.

But smile.... cause your bad attitude is "the problem."
Don't ask for help, weakling;
charity is a shameful insult.
Your pain is your fault.

Get over it.

Stare wordlessly at the "solutions" the theoreticians provide...
A million hoops to jump through,
A million revisitations of the woeful story
A million recountings of the grief and sorrow
Relive the tale over and over.

The soul-withering shame of the supplicant.

What's mainly wrong with society today, is that too many dirt roads have been paved.

Paul Harvey -

“Lao Ke’s first response to Enoch”

The flame pushes to overcome all which restrains its passion,
In the angry young man, cynicism is a woefully disappointing tool.
She only serves to satisfy the shallow recognition of the immediate.
There is no emptiness – only reality that mocks the blindness of desire.
Paths and destinations are illusions, an emptiness which we fill with desire.

By promising ourselves dreams, we lose ourselves in illusion.
Our dreams echo back as the emptiness which all desire represents.

Seek not the affirmation of consensus; only you can be the arbiter of your dreams.
Expect no harmony when you pursue desire, make no good deed for showmanship.
Doors and options only outline the illusion of restriction, the “gatekeeper” bogeyman.
We simplify to exploit; but reality is impervious to simplification.

We have everything we need; desire is dissatisfaction.

Desire and fear tip the scales of balance, it rocks to and fro.
The distance between minds is infinite… the distance between souls is zero.
There are no foes where there is no desire; do not enjoin the covetous in their chorus.

We all have nothing to offer, only ourselves to share.
Be still, where you are, the stream always moves, you needn't.
You are the opportunity, and the opportune; no other is needed.
Those who reject desire, never want anything, and are thus, always fulfilled.

No one takes. No one gives. Things simply take the form we give them.
There are no relationships that can overtake the reality of existing.
Those whose approach is to struggle, struggle endlessly;
those whose approach is to celebrate, find celebration everywhere.
There is no becoming, there is only what is.

Regret is a rung in the ladder of life.
A life without regret is a life without learning.
Be the passenger, not the vehicle.

"Attitudes" are for actors on a stage.
Life is not a stage, life is reality.
Charity is in the heart of the giver and the taker.
Both are served by it's true expression.

Pain is a currency of love.
behind one, you may often find the other.

Define 'it'.
Self-pity? Dashed vanity?
These are all baggage... it is in the vehicle with you...
you needn't bring the burden when there is other, more worthy cargo.

The advice of others will take the form of a list...
because you are not them, they are not you, and each traveler carries their own burdens.
Yours is not "a story" but an experience, and it is only yours.

Shame is part of the illusion of pride.
Pride is the mother of all sin,
reject her mercilessly.
For it is she who consumes your soul,
by maintaining that you owe and are owed something aside from reality.

Enoch returns

You can not know me.
And you certainly cannot know my sorrow.
I was the eater of lies and false hopes.
I believed the dreams of possibilities that never were.
No better could it have been had they provided an audience,
to laugh at the fool.

I grew, as a youth, believing in the magic of possibility.
Yet no one stepped up to mentor me through the facade.

I tried as best I could to be honorable, loyal, and righteous.
But I learned that honor is a liability, that loyalty breeds distrust,
I reached for any sign of hope being worthy of faith.
But instead I found that pleasing a gatekeeper was the only currency of value.

The disconnect nearly broke my will to live.

I gave and worked, I committed myself to the value of a well-crafted job.
But I found that those who offer rewards use no judgement and make no effort beyond a spreadsheet catering to the lowest common denominator.
They call it "good business."
I was prompted to display gratitude for the opportunity to work,
as if it was a charity to me.

No one can offer anything without some internal fear of being taken advantage of,
No one seems to be able to relate to the idea that the exchange between employee and employer should be considered an equal trade.
Those infatuated with being "the boss" force the equation to offer their existence more value than those who actually "do."

I am weary, I have no future option to change the paradigm, and talking about it is seen as 'wrong.'

My personal life is no concern to my employer, my life is secondary to such concerns.
Playing by the rules, I am bankcrupt, the struggle against every tragedy,
confined to resource I must nearly beg for, despite my being 'equal' to those who seem endlessly accomodated.

Unemployed? Homeless? Get a job, you bum!
People looking down at those less fortunate as if they had actually earned their protection from misfortune.

People like you tell me not to be angry, not to dismay, or despair.
But that is all that remains in me, as my life crumbles in disarray.

Since all others apparently never suffer, never encounter grief, never have "bad luck."
It must be something in me that is wrong.
I am consigned to want and need, I have to fear tomorrow.
Aside from platitudes about 'time' I must not show any wear or tear on my person, I must be "up" and "smiling" and "cheerful" for the audience that damns me.

Systems are devised to be as repugnant as possible to make certain that no help comes my way, lest I be a useless eater and a burden on my fellow man. An acceptor of 'charity' a shameful wastrel.

I offer no apology. This is what has happened, and is happening to me.

Why must I not despair? Why must I protect the illusion of the perfect world to my peers?

And what do I tell my children, Lao Ke?

They don't understand why we are poor and getting poorer.
They can't grasp why all of their peers do not hunger, want, or need?

Loved one's fault my bad attitude... because that is all they see, it is all they care to see...
it is (and has to be) my failing.

Enoch laments

So much to do.

I am no one, and nothing.

I am failure, and inadequacy.

I am wasted effort, and mispent energy.

I am error, and I am ignorance.


No matter, though,

I am to be as another cog in a machine destined to grind itself into oblivion, achieving nothing.

I am the spectator, constrained to fantasize about being more; but never empowered to change.

I am the prisoner, confined to watch from my cell..., unable to help

I am anathema.



Ignoring or not heeding me is a virtue.

Laboring to secure my immobility is a noble effort.

Limiting my potential is a rewarded act.

Demeaning me, besmirching me, rendering me uglier is a service.



There will be no room for me.

I am what others reject, throw away, and refuse to recycle.



My ears ring with slamming doors, locking shutters, and fleeing footsteps.

I hear ridicule, I am the bad example.

Derrision, and scorn are my meals.

I serve no purpose.

I walk alone.


I merit nothing.

I pay for charity.

I must earn my gifts.

I must generate gratitude to simply survive.


Acts of kindness towards me are wasteful.

Consideration of my circumstance is fruitless coddling.

Cooperation is my mandate, not mine to refuse.


What happens when I reject myself?