Crusading without connecting.
Socially Networking, but remaining unbefriended.
Convincing ourselves that we are not solitary in the crowd on The Cloud.
All is well if you receive the requisite number of Likes on FB.
Could it be that the noise of our busy-ness drowned out any need to look within?
Artists, writers and dogmatizers are similarly lonely and irrepressible
Whilst they seek universal reciprocity of feeling, meaning and truth.
Their acts of creation are at once selfish and generous.
You make the work for yourself but don’t hoard it
Away from human consumption.
But only the dogmatizers demand a compulsory reaction, a loyal posse, a power over others.
The writers and artists nervously hope that their late-night contrivances strike a chord.
They produce because it calms the Beast
Of their Compulsion to risk being misread, maligned, different, by exposing their Esse.
Fortunate is the loner who realizes that to genuinely connect
Is the highest respite and reverence.
And so, for those who find the solitary striving of enforced sequestration
To be comfortingly familiar.
We need not feel ashamed that we find succor therein.
As we shelter in place, we now have permission to ignore
Haunting directives to strut, be "Liked", have 500+ connections, be a“Member”.
We are now following widespread mandates to be with ourselves,
Apart, where it feels legitimate, safe and "healthy".
Immersed in the sometimes uncomfortable commitment to write our odes and opuses,
Through self-enforced, self-preserved, distancing.
Some of us wrote this eremite’s manual long ago, entitled:
Seek
To
Strive
Within
Stillness.
Without success or perhaps, enough to pay our bills, or stifle others’ impatient groans.
The Quiet remains to restore our humanity, intuition, and respect for the Sacred Artistry Found in the Infamous "Others",
And Our Better Selves.