I don’t write in a journal everyday, but I have accumulated many entries over the past 50+ years beginning in 1966. Some items evolved into longer works. Among the leftovers little pieces survived. I thought a collection of these with a piece culled from the same date in a past year would make an interesting yearbook. The consistencies and inconsistencies of mind, skipping back and forth across time, provide varied perspectives. It is difficult to remember the context of the past we’ve lived; we also make suppositions about times that predate ourselves.

The few alterations from original drafts were to improve clarity. The worst of my work is not included. There remains enough mediocrity and immaturity to make me feel humble and you feel smart. There are also moments of accidental insight and incidental humor.

Author Stephen Crane referred to his little pieces as pills…apparently they were small and somewhat hard to swallow, but good for you.


Comments Welcome!

Thursday, March 24, 2022

Address

 

March 24, 1979  (I was 34)

 

         Address

My country has not been able

to lead economically and righteously

We are not the conscious rich

We have not sought to make everyone wealthy

We have not loved the truth and freedom we cherish

We have killed Allende

We have set up shahs and shot down townsmen

Our personal generosities have not been official

We have sold armaments in the name of peace

I know this without reading anything radical

Our discussion of who we are is more dramatic than actual

It is easy to lead a life of parochial responsibility

It is hard to act internationally when you never leave the country

It is harder to know if governments are acting wisely

and impossible to trust them to do so

Revolutions can be trusted to supply us with corpses

and leaders who in the end are only men

 

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