once, life was simple
you had to find food
pick it or hunt for it.
you went hungry or felt fed.
you slept in the cave or the hut
went to the stream for water
enjoyed the warmth of the sun
and shivered through the wintry months.
your babies died, some survived
same with the mothers.
From time to time the emperor's
or nearest tribal king's men
came round and either killed you
or took your adult sons to war.
Sometimes they came back
often not.
Life was painful, hard
but we still had moments of love, laughter, joy.
and we knew how things were.
We knew how things were.
Now everything is available
though not to all.
to eat you have to have money
and for that you have to work
in the machine
or rely on something called the state
or charity.
The emperors who rule are not like before
where the most gruesome aggressor wore the crown.
Now, in some of our places, we vote for them
though we don't know what we are voting for.
Now we don't try to find food for our families
now we don't know where the food comes from
or how it is made
or what it is made of.
Nor do we know how the country runs
or the technology that makes everything work.
We vote if we still have any sense of hope and trust,
and think we are choosing our decision.
But everything is so complicated
there's no way for anyone except a professor
to really assess the options
and reach a rational conclusion.
And so it is,
eight billion people,
bewildered but unaware that we are bewildered,
cogs in cogs in cogs in cogs
sensing that we are still autonomous beings
but really we are not authentic any more.
True, there are moments, snatches, words, songs, a tale or two
that, offered, brings back a scent of reality amongst the insane clutter
of the megalopolis
which stretches from LA to Tokyo and Oslo to Dunedin
and it is these glimpses of what truly nurtures us
that reminds us of what it once was
to be human.
