To My Dying Idealism

There is a time in any thinking man's life when he realizes that
tommorow is not a guarantee and this is not a call to arms. For the
first time, he understands that his father was not a perfect man, a
friendly Socrates, favored by the gods of war and love, that the good
die young and the young die good, wrenching their swords in each others
guts, that his mother was not a benevolent angel but a woman, gifted
with strength, homespun intelligence, a stubborn nobleness but
sometimes loose with men as with ideas, we realize that our father in
heaven does not love us very much nor do we know him in any deeper
sense than an awe for lightning, large machinery, and an occasional
contemplation of water, or a peaceful desert landscape. No, you see,
I'm slipping again. The desert is a place where you starve, where you
try to hitch a ride in the searing sun but never receive one, and
simply fall dead, and then are thrown in a mass grave. This is the
desert; a place where your lips grow charred and bleed, a place where
only the hardy live and that by cold whisky. He understands that
children are evil and have to be taught morality, that most men are
foolish children ruled by a warrior class of Spartans,he understands
that the government does not love him, and neither does his
corporation. He understands that his priest, as well as his doctor,
fucks his secretary. He figures out that the rich man is not better
than the poor man but the winning warrior in a tribal society where the
women and children do not see the killing. He learns that his city
police officer lives in a "Law and Order" episode. He understands that
men are not good but are better if their pecker is in your pocket, to
quote President Johnson. He learns that he doesn't know the first thing
about Nazi Germany except that it can seem chillingly evil, when
accompanied by nausea and an overdose of HRD, served in warm, slightly
putrified Orange juice. He understands that a hard day's work, a
calculating man, is required to keep a wife and raise children. But, if
he's lucky, he also learns that a sunny day, a contemplation of a
forest river, a perusal of a sublime art work, or meditation on a
insightful poem, you see I've slipped again.