I Won’t, I Want You So Bad

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        Let me be honest. I'm living a hand-me-down destiny.


Please don't mistake me for someone you know, or someone you want me to be, because I think the way I think, and I listen to the music I want to. I don't live in the past, but I have many, many pleasant memories there. Like good and faithful friends, I like to visit with them often. I am what I am, and that's all I ever can be. I doubt I'm the one you thought I was, and if I am, you didn't pay attention when you signed on. With apologies to the Bob Dylan, whatever it is you're looking for, it ain't me, babe.


Unless you're one of my children, I won't die for you.


Societies and countries don't work for me; I won't pledge to a flag.


Words are words, and are more powerful than any weapon humans can devise. The Republic, The Bible, The Koran, The Magna Carta, "Mein Kampf," The U.S. Constitution . . . "Hamlet," Catch 22, "Like A Rolling Stone," "Imagine." Fill in your own title. I speak softly and loudly and often. I speak sentimentally, and I speak harshly. I never  "mis-speak."


I won't observe political correctness to satisfy the insecurities or selfishness in others.


Don't mistake my kindness for weakness. I believe in the Golden Rule, and I try hard to be fair and courteous to everyone, but if you are rude or unkind or unjust to me, don't expect me to smile and take it. I won't turn the other cheek. That only gives you a fresh target.


I'm not afraid to love you, but I am afraid you won't love me back. I'm not afraid to care, but I am afraid you won't care that I care.


I won't stay simply because I said I would never leave.


In the history of the world giants among men have thought about and observed how the earth, nature- the universe itself -works, and because of their magnificent contributions you and I are the wiser, beneficiaries of science and philosophy. Not once in all of recorded history have philosophers and scientists ever banded their armies together to conquer nations and civilizations, to mold, torture and murder innocents because their opponents didn't accept the scientists' and philosophers' notions. Can your religion or political party say the same?


I won't give in to the pressure of belonging to a group because it buys me promises and protection from a bitter and vengeful deity, and makes me feel superior to anyone who doesn't believe as I do.  


As far as we know, this is the only rock in the observable universe that supports life, and supports it abundantly. Yet, the dominant species- arguably humankind -seems to have as its goal the elimination of as much life as possible, while still preserving Self. To an outsider we must look like a bunch of spoiled children fighting in a playground sandbox.


Politicians incite wars, incite their citizenry to fight for them, and erect monuments to and eulogize the poor dupes who believed in "The Cause" when it's all over. That's zero comfort to those who lost the loved ones they wanted so much to be alive. It was true of the Spartans, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Spanish Conquistadors, the Union and Confederate forces, the Red Army, the Nazis, the North and South Vietnamese, and a thousand other conquering armies throughout human history. Send the dictators and presidents to war, and leave the rest of us out of it.


I won't fight in your wars.


People pray for God to alter his plans just for them. If there is a God, and if he really does have some sort of Master Plan, my petitions to him to rearrange that plan for my benefit are worse than self-serving and conceited; they’re absurd. I'd have better luck petitioning the president to alter national policy so I can have Friday afternoons off from work.


I won't pray to get my way. I'll play the cards I'm dealt. 


To date I have read a thousand books and written six books of my own, five of them novels. I've also written forty or fifty short stories. I've written poetry and articles. But like the songwriter I told you about a few months ago, Terence Martin, you have never heard of me. You haven't read my books and stories. You have read somebody else's, and the odds are that at least some of what you read was crap. Crap sells.


I won't write crap. I told you: I don't "misspeak," and I don't "miswrite."


These are some of the things I won't do. But if Bob Dylan will forgive me, here is what I will do. Here is what I want:


I will be honest with you. I want you to be honest with me.


I will be flawed. I want you to be flawed too, and please . . . let's both admit it and accept each other, as is.


I will harvest happiness wherever I can find it. I want you to let whatever makes me happy make me happy. I promise it will never hurt you.


I will see the world as a whole; I will see people as people, wherever they live, regardless of the political system they're living under, no matter what kind of music they listen to.


I will protect you, but not from everything and not from everyone. I can't. I want you to listen to me; I want you to talk to me.


I will feel every emotion deeper than anyone you know; I want you to understand that I will not always show those emotions, but understand also that they are almost surely about you.


Quoting Bob: 


The cracked bells and washed out horns

blow into my face with scorn;

it ain't that way, I wasn't born to lose you.

I want you

Oh, I want you,

so bad.




Originally published January 2, 2013

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