A PARADOX IN THE PARADIGM: THE LIE OF THE MODERN ERA

The happy man only smiles insofar as his brain

encounters the right happenings of today and tomorrow

he only wields a laugh when stimulated to do so

his hope is a mountain range of emotion destined 

to erode and change after he realizes that the world

is not so much sunshine and bliss as it is hard and trying,

this man is to be pitied because he has no rock but

the faulty foothold of quicksand that he calls purpose,

imagine a life where man’s chief end is to suffer the weight

of that entire mountain held on your back and then tell me

if in the end it was worth finding your worth in the temporary,

look to nature and see that no ground remains the same forever

shift happens and quakes bring to rubble security and stability;

now the happy man is no longer smiling anymore.

The successful man is satisfied only when his pockets are full

with the right things –– stuff stacked on stuff on stuff on stuff ––

so full that he knows nothing but plenty and success and excess

he desires that which is revered by his contemporaries, like

competition and performance, outward accolades and trophies

stored in huge glass closets and display cases for the world to see

but truly that man has locked his heart in a safe somewhere

where no one can touch it but, God is that dangerous

his body is so cold without that heart, he lives for 

the future, the complexion of a looking glass while he is
weighed down by the medals hung around his neck,

forcing a downcast face, in fear that he will shatter any second

because the grades and wealth were never enough, so

he falls down the ladder and now the successful man is on the ground, broken.

The moral man finds his worth in being a good person

making it his goal to leave the planet better off than it was,

to contribute new ideas and new means of sacrifice

a presupposition that man isn’t evil and that full faith in humanity

is full faith in goodness where all are completely welcome,

this man accepts everyone, a universal bridge that leads all together

for him all roads lead to Rome, whatever you deem that yourself

but poor man he is, because poor men are his lot, war is his problem,

injustice is his agenda, tyranny is his to solve, discrimination his issue

and his back breaks as the suspension cords snap because the totality

of immorality in the world exceeds his carrying capacity,

the lie that virtue is relative yields chaotic patterns in his mind because he always

acted as if it wasn't, though he believed that it was, a paradox in the paradigm

that he called humanity self-reflected in his own vanity, altruism 

subverted in egoism, a bridge that ends from where it extends, 

from one hand to the other, a traffic circle with signs of virtue in every direction,

he cannot save the world because he cannot save himself;

now the moral man jumps off his own bridge and drowns in humanistic ecstasy.

If the meaning of life is happiness, hope you never feel depression,

if success, hope you never lose your job or face failure,

if morality, hope you can rest in the peace that you can create world peace, but

if you yearn for a joy predating this pain, then please seek the eternal,

where your identity is to be fully known and fully loved anyway,

a place where you can be weak and inadequate, where you can

be dependent and not feel discarded, wrong but not be judged,

a place where God meets man and says, “Your heart ––

I want to take it away and give you mine so that you and I

can sit at this banquet table for forever and together dine,

oh my beloved, be loved and become my invaluable son.”