Israel

“Once on yellow sheet of paper with green lines, he wrote a poem
and he called it “Spot”
because that was the name of his dog and that’s what it was all about
and his teacher gave him an “A” and a big gold star
and his mother hung it on the kitchen cupboard and showed it to his aunt
and that was the year his sister was born-and his parents kissed all the time
and the little girl around the corner sent him a postcard with a row of X’s on it
and his father tucked him into bed at night and was always there.

Then on a white sheet of paper with blue lines, he wrote another poem
and he called it “Autumn”
because that was the time of year and that’s what it was all about
and his teacher gave him an “A” and told him to write more clearly
and his mother told him not to hang it on the kitchen cupboard because it left marks
and that was the year his sister got glasses and his parents never kissed anymore
and the little girl around the corner laughed when he fell down with his bike
and his father didn’t tuck him in at night.

So, on another piece of paper torn from a notebook he wrote another poem
and he called it “Absolutely Nothing”
Because that’s what it was all about
and his teach gave him an “A” and a hard searching look
and he didn’t show it to his mother
and that was the year he caught his sister necking on the back porch
and the little girl around the corner wore too much make-up so that he laughed when he kissed her
but he kissed her anyway
and he tucked himself in bed at three AM with his father snoring loudly in the next room

Finally, on the inside of a matchbook he wrote another poem
and he called it “?” because that’s what it was all about
And he gave himself an “A” and a slash on each wrist and hung it on the bathroom mirror
Because he couldn’t make it to the kitchen.”
― Earl Reum

“Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow, and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune's control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”
― Seneca

“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
― Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

“Now, of course, it’s extremely easy to say, “The heck with it—I’m just going to adapt myself to the structures of power and authority, and do the best I can within them.” Sure, you can do that. But that’s not acting like a decent person. Look, if you’re walking down the street and you see a kid eating an ice-cream cone, and you notice there’s no cop around and you’re hungry, you can take the ice-cream cone because you’re bigger and just walk away. You can do that—probably there are people who do. But we call them pathological. On the other hand, if they do it within existing social structures, we call them normal—but it’s just as pathological, it’s just the pathology of the general society. Again, people always have choices, so you can decide to accept the pathology—but then do it honestly at least. If you have that grain of honesty in you, say: “Okay, I’m going to honestly be pathological.” Or else just try to break out of it somehow.”
― Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky