Butterfly Minds

I wrote the following as an attempt at writing an op ed piece for a newspaper. I even submitted it to a couple before realizing that it is not really an op piece. It's in part autobiographical, in part fictional. It's in part literal and in part not. I think it would be most honest to say I am both the one raving and the one being raved against. It's about things I've been thinking about a lot lately. I think it would best be called a poem, although I think it funny that that isn't what I was trying to write, and I didn't even realize that was what it was for a long time. What do you think?:

BUTTERFLY MINDS

My mind is a whirlwind. No, a butterfly. It is early still.

My mind is a butterfly, flitting about from one flower of thought to another.

I have been reading about postmodernism. Intuition, feelings, longings. The heart of man, it seems, is fighting back.

The heart was always there, of course. But now we are acknowledging it again. Finding value in it. Or, at least, some of us are.

Some not so much. Some of you, with your logical linear rationality, are afraid. You are afraid of our stream of consciousness thinking. You cannot keep up with us.  “My God,” you exclaim, “slow down!” No. You keep up. I am at my highest, my best mood, my best thinking, and you want me to slow down? Buzz-kill.

Quit telling me to wait for the day when your God or your Science will reveal the truth. I am here now. Talk to me in the now. And quit telling me about your absolute truths, your unchanging God, your objective Holy Science. What does all that mean, outside of one’s head? I see how your conclusions keep changing. Hypocrite. You keep your dead God and dead Science. Mine live. I see God’s heart, beating, living, in his poetry and parables. Why do you only seek his mind? And I do not need to dissect butterflies to see nature’s beauty and majesty. Why do you? What kind of perversion is that?

Am I going too fast? Keep up!

I see the subjective nature of truth. I see how in the application truth depends on who I am, where I am, what I am doing. I am comfortable with that. Why aren’t you?

Quit thinking so much. Life might be a lesson, but there’s no exam. I have learned a lot. I have seen a lot. You should try it sometime. Try feeling, seeing, being, instead of just thinking. I see you hesitate before hugging me goodbye. Why? You are thinking! Stop it. Feel. Be.

And do not try to box me in with your old fashioned logic. I see you taking my presuppositions, my basic beliefs and founding tenets, to their logical conclusions. But that is one of my problems with your rationality and logic. Anything, if taken to its logical conclusion, will look bad. You fear the logical conclusions of my thoughts. Stop it. It is your logic that is taking you there, not me.

I hear academics and religion freaks telling you what I think. Funny, seeing them in the same boat. Do not listen to them. Listen to me. They are afraid. Maybe they should be. Their cold-blooded Science, their rational logical God, are things of the past. They are quickly becoming obsolete, outdated, outmoded, slowly sinking in their leaden boats of objective truth. They are afraid. That is all they can tell you.

My mind is a butterfly. Leave it alone. You keep your Ritalin. You adapt to me! Quit boring me. Keep up. Or maybe you can go off and live in the woods somewhere. Dreaming of your old slow world. Mine is the world today. You go dream of yesterday.

First published on MySpace - not sure when (probably 2005ish)