{"id":1272,"date":"2014-01-10T15:46:19","date_gmt":"2014-01-10T20:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/?p=1272"},"modified":"2021-02-21T13:52:59","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T18:52:59","slug":"poem-come-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/10\/poem-come-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"POEM: Come Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

At a party<\/span>
\nA stranger<\/span>
\nApproaches several guests<\/span>
\nWith great anticipation<\/span>
\nWon by won<\/span>
\nNot asking them<\/span>
\nThe routine inquiry<\/span>
\n“What do you do<\/span>
\nfor a living?”<\/span>
\nInstead asking them<\/span>
\n“What do you do<\/span>
\nthat makes you come alive?”<\/span>
\nThough it soon becomes clear<\/span>
\nThere is only one real question<\/span>
\nWill they ever be the same?<\/span><\/p>\n

This poem is inspired by one of my favorite quotes, by Howard Thurman, a theologian and activist: \u201cDon\u2019t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 This poem uses one of my favorite poetic devices, other than puns of course, the intentionally ambiguous pronoun; specifically, they<\/em> in the last line.\u00a0 This can refer to the several guests, or as to whether the answers to the two questions will ever merge into the one same answer.\u00a0 As you would have rightly suspected, both of these interpretations reinforce one another.\u00a0 The only use of a pun, twice, in Won by won<\/em>, is a tip of the hat to another favorite quote of mine, by Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”\u00a0 This line infers that change comes about not simply by pondering questions, but my living and modeling the change that we want to see in the world.\u00a0 The inquiring guest adds their own life to the weight of the question.\u00a0 In a related quote, by the great Albert Schweitzer: “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”\u00a0 The poem is mine.\u00a0 The quotes driving this commentary are others’.\u00a0 Of course, plagiarism is the highest form of flattery — a quote attributed to an unknown but highly flattered author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a party A stranger Approaches several guests With great anticipation Won by won Not asking them The routine inquiry “What do you do for a living?” Instead asking them “What do you do that makes you come alive?” Though … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[165,397,154,493,200,359,658,291,94,7,544,82,53,511,380],"class_list":["post-1272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-political-and-philosophical-musings","tag-albert-schweitzer","tag-change","tag-gandhi","tag-job","tag-jobs","tag-life","tag-poems","tag-poet","tag-poetry","tag-puns","tag-questions","tag-quotes","tag-short-poems","tag-vocation","tag-work"],"yoast_head":"\nPOEM: Come Alive | Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Top Pun's Poetry, Funny Puns, Free Posters, Public Health Radio Show! 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