I under stand
You are on
Some kind of in
Stall meant plan
As long
As you still
Pay attention
In do time
I’ll pay for such in deference
Hopefully not the final time
Having been
Pre-disposed
In the passed
And per severe
Beyond just us
And awe claims
Sow gossamer a ledge
Holy prone
Sacred out of my wits
With that owed time religion
Bard none
U of life
Won
As in daze of your
Still
In the hear and now
As I right
A tone
Sublime volume
For all too here
It is
My willing
As well
For give
The ineffable scene
Wear knot all is destined
And only that be
Which under stood
Hear after
That awe in life
Sir passing the grave
Life meeting its maker
Coming a cross
In attention
Out pacing
Thought fullness
Fated to outstrip
Getting just desserts
And given
The wrest is history
To whatever extant
I am
Sow
Inclined
End lessly
App’ed
Too think
For what is mind
For what is yores
In-during-ly
A where-ness
Bequeathing real eyes
This poem is about mindfulness. This poem is about acceptance, seeing things as they truly are, with a minimum of preconceived notions. This poem is about intimacy, vulnerability, living openly and freely in a whirled that often runs one over unconsciously, even at the hands of those with good intents. More specifically, this poem is informed and inspired by my experiences over recent months as a regular bicyclist, since I became car-less. It has dawned on me that riding my bike amidst distracted and unaware drivers of huge masses of metal, glass, and plastic — formerly known as cars — is a powerful metaphor for my worldview. Even if highly aware, the power differential possessed by unaware car drivers reliably results in them imposing the cost of their lack of awareness on those less powerful; in this case, a biker. They are insulated from the feedback, the costs, of their own mindlessness. I see such mindless, abusive power differentials wreaking havoc on our world most anywhere I look. 
At best, these mindless abuses of privilege (privilege as being on the stronger side of a power differential) are maladaptive. At worst, these mindless abuses of privilege are the foundation upon which evil can successfully manipulate the unconscious aspects of humanity to its own ends. In regard to intimacy, I would say that in the car-bicyclist relationship the car-driver represents the antithesis of vulnerability, literally protected by a huge wall of metal, glass, and plastic. To which the bicyclist offers their bare skin and an oft-ill-fitting plastic helmet for one’s consciousness-bearing noggin. You can draw your own particular picture of the implications of this larger dynamic played out in our social and political life together. In the world of urban cycling, let it suffice to say that good intent is not sufficient. Most drivers who violate your legal right-of-way are palpably repentant after they realize what they have done. I take great pride in offering my existence as a biker to drivers to help them learn about the existence of other people who are made vulnerable by their mindlessness. Still, it is I who pays the greater price for this potential evolutionary relationship. Thus, this poem.
If I am to be run over and killed by a mindless driver, please read this poem at my funeral, and offer this poem to the manslaughterer. Similarly, I offer myself up in the path of mindless (and mindful) political forces, in hopes of expanding humanity’s potential for evolution. If I should be run over and killed by some overtly political force, I am sure their are plenty of my other poems appropriate to be read at my memorial. In any case, wish me luck — if you believe in such things.
I view consciousness, or mindfulness, as the primary force and indicator of human evolution. I view most of the bad things in this world as a byproduct of a mindfulness deficiency. Quantitatively, having no one at the wheel allows many, many bad things to happen. Qualitatively, having people who are aware of their destructive choices and yet still choose them — one definition of sin — is a scary situation because mindfulness alone is insufficient for self-correction. This is an active disease of the will. Still, the passivity of the will, of active mindfulness, carries most of the day in most of our everyday lives. I see that our lives are lived for us, as passive beings, to a larger degree than we live our lives consciously, mindfully. The epic showdowns between conscious evil and conscious good make for great, even necessary, storytelling, but does not reflect the less sexy, more mundane bulk of our own struggles for increasing consciousness, the prerequisite for any life truly lived.
In the order of consciousness, self-awareness is a prerequisite for any fruitful other-awareness. Without self-awareness, we will be mired in unending unconscious, biased projections of our self onto the world of other people and things that make up our shared reality. My love of science is congruent with a desire to have an accurate understanding of our shared reality. Still, science falls disturbingly silent in addressing one’s inner life, and the ultimate, inescapable assumptions or projections onto other people. My working assumptions, based on my experience of my own inner life, is that people want to be accepted for who they are, positively appreciated, and want to contribute to a better world, our shared reality. I willingly project empathy and lovingkindness into the world, in hopes of a better world for all of us. If this is not what you want, feel free to let me know. 
If I stray from these working assumptions, feel free to gently remind me of my deepest commitments. If I stand clearly apart from these working assumptions, feel free to tell me like it is in no uncertain terms. As the Russian proverb goes: “Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie.”
