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.


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Saturday, February 4, 2023

The Doubt of the Benefit

 

February 4, 2014  (I was 69)

 

         The Doubt of the Benefit

Sometimes you just put one in for the system

You spend the entire day mopping up

The only other people I see mop just as much as me

It aint no thrill to find I’m the one caused the spill

Understand I do it in belief I affect the system

or in the same way I still pray long after

I quit believing in religion 

Harder to do each day

Each day the system has another way to explain

the role of those who serve the system

out of love out of duty out of belief they are valued

not only for their ability to mop but for their knowledge

of where exactly to mop on any given day

 

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