ASLEEP or The River of Denial

I am asleep.
Most of us are dreaming, awake.
Do you ever devise huge
ego defenses, protecting, perpetuating
a Denial System the size of the Nile River in Egypt?
But DENIAL is certainly NOT just a river in Egypt!
Not by a long shot.
It invades the very tendrils of our being,
And is the biggest lie
one can make
to oneself.

Denial of what?
Denial of our Dark Side...
Denial of our humanity
Denial of our foibles, blindness, obsessions,
Living out a script written by the sage guardians and purveyors
of public morality
and "standards"...
In the mad, mad rush to be the best I can be,
Have I really traveled on the road to Self-Knowledge?
-Truly the Road less traveled -
In the obsessive/compulsive/neurotic/maniacal rush
To get the promotion
To get the Dream Boat
To get the rights
To get, GET, GET!!!

I see people rushing, rushing, rushing blindly, asleep...
But they think they are going somewhere,
But only in a spatial, or temporal sense.
chained in material bondage to possessions, Possessions,
Possessions.
Upward mobility, "making it," what is the point?
The hypnotic, all-pervasive power of the Media, certainly
including this one:
The Internet.
The denial implied in the triumph of "Enlightened Self-Interest".
I have compassion for humanity,
Even though, let it not be denied, man is by far the most
dangerous animal on earth.
I pose the question: Does The Race of Man deserve to continue?

And, in any case, do I really want what I get?
And do we really know what we want?
"The Infinite Lightness of Being"
Like dandelions on the lawn, on a sunny, breezy morning in March,
so is our Life,
borrowed Time.
And can you fathom (do you WANT to fathom) what your very, very, very
Last thought on earth will be? During the very last second of your Life?
When the final aria is sung,
When the last brush strokes have dried on the canvas of Life,
Will I still be wondering, as I often did in the darker, silent moments:
Is This all there is?
Because if, as the song says, This is all there is,
"Let's keep dancing, let's break out the...and have a ball"
I want to wake up before my little life "is rounded with a sleep"
Why drown in the River of Denial?
Let's truly LIVE!! and truly LOVE!!
Let's keep dancing, dancing, dancing....

©Bruce Winslow © 2001