Poetry

Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me:
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree.

This is one of few poems that I could recite off the top of my head. It's in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. I don't know if he wrote it, and I don't care. I find it speaks to the unfortunate condition that is human nature. After my interpretation, it becomes:

We each cheat the other
for personal gain,
but death shall all find us,
one and the same.

Damn, I could be a poet. Anyways, I like the poem because it's honest. There is a dark side to humanity, and we shouldn't try to pretend that there isn't. Another poem I like for that reason is embedded in the 'Canticle' portion of Simon & Garfunkle's 'Scarborough Fair:'

War bellows
Blazing in scarlet battalions
Generals order their soldiers to kill
And to fight for a cause
they've long ago forgotten.

Yeah, that's good. War, death and swindling are all part of human nature. You should probably just accept it. Be realistic, etc. This is why I look down on idealists, communists, and radical feminists. They tend to view these things as something external to our nature that can be made disappear; they assume that we can rid ourselves of these things, and yet remain human. I think not. It's unfortunate, but it's realistic. Human history is not a story about a bunch of people who get along. Now I suggest that you all get very depressed thinking about this. Myself, I'll be right here, going through your stuff.