Globalization Part VII

A flat world
forwards agreement
towards naked existence.

Its institutions-
secular and sacred-effect
the leveling process of contagion
on the wings of false data.

Existence reduced
to "me".
~~

It was well past midnight.
Chad had lost track
of time.

The evening lay still and quiet
uncharacteristically absent
the comings and goings
from the coffeehouse
below Chad's flat.

The smell of hollyhocks, planted
along the sidewalk, loitered
in the heavy, summernight's air,
also having lost track of time
to curiously waft its way
through the open panes
of Chad's window.

Oddly enough,
Chad had not noticed.

Outside it was pitch black,
the moon off on furlough
and streetlights still out
having not been replaces
because of budget cuts
from the recession.

Chad sat at the small table
next to the window,
spellbound to the book,
squinting into focus each line
from too little light given off
by the energy-saving bulb
of the table lamp
he'd disrobed
of its shade.

Yet, Chad couldn't
put down the book.
Realization after realization
to unanswered questions
popped to view.

They were simple answers,
but nonetheless suppressed.

A passage read,
"If it's true for you,
it's true."

Suddenly, the words
grew bigger and brighter,
as if the moon had returned,
or the streetlights were changed,
or the nightmare had ended.

Chad felt different, lighter,
as when a burden's lifted
from the shoulders.

The lyrics of a song
of freedom flashed
to mind: "See me! Feel me!
Touch me!"

He realized he was
his own Truth.

Uncontrollably,
tears streamed
from his eyes.

He felt enthuiasm
not known since
his youth.

Lost dreams cascaded
before his eyes,
the ones he'd compromised
to a flat world-
the purpose to help others
supplanted by greed
for self, buried
beneath the mire
of cynicism.

"How perverted I'd become",
he said aloud as if to beckon
forgiveness that the moon
might shine its light
through the opened panes,
and the scent of hollyhocks
he'd now come to smell
would feel welcomed
to while away
in the darkness
of his flat.

Chad braced himself
against self-abasement
for his arrogance,
for turning his back
on the person he was
to become niggardly
and fawning
to a flat world.
~~

A flat world
is robotic.

In a flat world
we do not miss
the moon.

We do not see,
nor do we smell
lonesome hollyhocks.

We live without streetlights
to light the way
through eternal
darkness.
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

Globalization Part VI

A flat world

works as a

hidden influence".

It's only power lies
in others

not knowing.

In a flat world

data is presumed true,

not evaluated.

~~

Without a map,

without direction,

his learning a sham,

Chad reconciled

himself he'd been living
a lie.

Assuming the things
he'd been taught as truth,
only to see
their "dead ends".

"Where is Truth?"

he mulled to himself.

"It's up to me to sift

through the chaos,

the debris left

from destruction,

to find my direction."

"My fault for not broadening

my horizons with courses

in Liberal Arts?"

"Might philosophy have given

the insights into life

I soarly lack?"

Chad rolled back

to college days and disabused

himself of such notions:

Plato- an hour of drudgery

where the professor expounded

Platonian reality

in differential calculus.

In one painful equation

after another, grating streaks

of chalk from a mad professor

who had gotten up

too late to dress

or neglected his laundry duties,

and moseyed in

in cut-offs frayed at the hems,

his shirt tails hanging

to the knees and wearing

flip-flops.

To Chad philosophy offered

little practical use and was

a waste of time and money.

There was endless study

of one great thinker refuting another

which did little more than sell

textbooks and contribute

to one's neurosis.

"Should I have taken

more Psychology courses?

Maybe I would have seen

the manic traits of Wall Street

in time to act?"

But all through school

Chad kept a quiet resentment

towards Psychology, taking

the minimum credits

for graduation.

It all started in high school-

or maybe before-

with a teacher

he couldn't stand.

A Ms. Grimes who was

an authoritarian and Chad

to avoid confrontation would sit

to the rear where he pretended

to pay attention, feeling safe

at not getting caught.

Chad confessed,

"Well, there was stuff

I didn't understand that made

me spinny and not want

to take more Psych courses."

Even so, Chad felt proud

he had compromised himself,

not swallowed hook, line

and sinker. Refused to agree

that man was a dog or accept

barbaric treatments of electric-shock

and lobotomy as valid therapies

of the mind.

As if with a thunder clap,

Chad flashed back to church,

the Sunday School classes

he stopped attending.

"Oh, no!" he thought,

"I strayed from faith

and lost my way

which is my undoing?"

But Chad recalled

one Sunday he had taken

a girlfriend to church-

a Spanish girl and Catholic-

and endured embarrasment

beyond belief as the preacher

delivered a scathing sermon

demonizing Catholicism.

And other preacher-

different church- absconded

with church funds

never to be seen

again.

~~

A flat world
has no barriers.
No windbreaks.

Its virus spreads
with wild abandon:
failing lives,
failing towns,
failing nations.

A failing world.

In a flat world
the hidden influence
insidiously resides
in institutions of learning
and temples of worship.

Contagion at the core
of civilization.
~~

Chad saw the trap.
Why he had falsely vested
hope in Wall Street.

To look out for "number one",
to live for money was
all that remained
in a flat world.
~~

Chad was needing to escape.
He searched at the library
for a book to whisk
him away.

After all the introspection,
there was still no map,
no solution.

Only where it was not.

He recalled reading
a fantasy novel-
"Battlefield Earth",
by an author named Hubbard.
The parallels between
the book and the world
he now saw were
hauntingly similar.

Scrolling the catalog,
Chad saw another
of Hubbard's novels-
"Mission Earth".

"Great! I'll check
that one out."

In the listing
another entry seized
his searching eyes.
It sounded nothing
like fantasy.

Chad continued scrolling,
but the odd title
kept calling him back
like an unfinished dream.

He rolled back
to the curious entry, staring
at the screen
in disbelief.

Chad blinked and squinted,
refocusing the words
before his eyes, still unsure
at what he read:

"A New Slant On Life".

"Can this be?" he thought,
pulling back his enthusiasm
still cynical and suspect
such thing existed.

But he had to find out
for himself.
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.