After experience taught me that all the ordinary <br />Surroundings of social life are futile and vain; <br /> <br /> I’m going to show you something very <br /> Ugly: someday, it might save your life. <br /> <br />Seeing that none of the things I feared contain <br />In themselves anything either good or bad <br /> <br /> What if you get caught without a knife; <br /> Nothing—even a loop of piano wire; <br /> <br />Excepting only in the effect they had <br />Upon my mind, I resolved to inquire <br /> <br /> Take the first two fingers of this hand; <br /> Fork them out—kind of a “V for Victory”— <br /> <br />Whether there might be something whose discovery <br />Would grant me supreme, unending happiness. <br /> <br /> And jam them into the eyes of your enemy. <br /> You have to do this hard. Very hard. Then press <br /> <br />No virtue can be thought to have priority <br />Over this endeavor to preserve one’s being. <br /> <br /> Both fingers down around the cheekbone <br /> And setting your foot high into the chest <br /> <br />No man can desire to act rightly, to be blessed, <br />To live rightly, without simultaneously <br /> <br /> You must call up every strength you own <br /> And you can rip off the whole facial mask. <br /> <br />Wishing to be, to act, to live. He must ask <br />First, in other words, to actually exist. <br /> <br /> <br /> And you, whiner, who wastes your time <br /> Dawdling over the remorseless earth, <br /> What evil, what unspeakable crime <br /> Have you made your life worth?<br /><br />William De Witt Snodgrass<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/after-experience-taught-me/
