There is a subtle longing (and, perhaps, sometimes, a not-so-subtle longing) amongst man that can be most admired on Metropolitan street corners and bus stops (subway stations/burger joints/office spaces/public pools/little Suzie's ballet recital). Everywhere I look, I see faces that belong to the same starving mass, all ravenous for that slightly higher standard of living, all mercilessly beating upon each other to reach their prize. And oft their claws and shallow eyes sadden me, but other times I cannot help but look at them and laugh.

What silly fools they all must be, swarming around haplessly in the thick, grimy haze of capitalism, failing to see the tremendous beauty around them. I want to run up to each of them and shake them and give them a good boot in the ass and shout WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU WONDERFUL, GOLDEN BASTARD!? STOP THIS NONSENSE! GET OUT THERE AND LIVE! THERE IS SO MUCH BEAUTY IN THE WORLD! WHAT ARE YOU HUNTING FOR, A GOLDEN BATHROOM, HMM? --- I get the feeling that most of these people would, after I'd harassed them, simply go on in their regular patterns, return to their usually unfulfilling careers and hope for that Christmas bonus and that faithful lottery ticket, and pray every night to their unseen gods, and blindly continue on their perpetual quest toward the Perfect Life.

I think these people ignorant. The Perfect Life? BAH! What's wrong with THIS Life, I say? The holy merchant of the East could offer me this Perfect Life at no charge, and I would turn him away without more than a second thought! Perhaps someone with more materialistic goals would do otherwise; however, as it is, I am one to prize, above most everything else, the experience of Living. Not only the "good" experiences, but ALL experience, no matter how terribly awful or extraordinarily wonderful it may be. I enjoy the ups and downs. Also, I like to earn that which is in my Life, and, to me, guaranteed happiness can only be of superficial merit as its fruits are not brought about through labour and can therefore never be fully satisfactory. I would feel somewhat guilty for rejoicing in splendours that I would know I had done nothing to earn.

And wouldn't it be terrible, just TERrible, to live a Life of uninterrupted happiness? It seems entirely inhuman, really, and I doubt that a state of such happiness could ever EXIST for myself. The way that I see it, the only way that we could achieve such bliss, such complete feLICity and satisFACTion, given the human tendency to crave that which one cannot obtain, is to strip us of our imagination so that we could not imagine anything greater than that which we already have. AND WHAT AM I WITHOUT MY IMAGINATION, I ASK YOU!? No, no, I would never, by my own right, exchange my imagination for any wealth that man could afford me. My imagination allots me riches far greater than anything that anyone else could possibly know.

So thank you very much, mister holy merchant of the East, for your gracious offer, but I shall have to pass it up for today; and I hope that I will ALways pass it up. Meanwhile, I think that I'll spend my time living in the Every Moment and appreciating Life for all its natural wonder. After all, there is so much beauty in the world.

Stranger flowers yet ---