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Mar 2020
From the moment I was born and society taught me how to live.
Expectation was given it's priority and there my energies I did give.

Through culture and my peers I was taught all right from wrong.
And without question or any form of doubt I went right along.

I learnt what I was meant to as society did dictate for me to do.
Becoming fluent and accepted because I shared their social view.

I managed all the toil and trials that was expected of my role.
I gave my every effort to what society said was my goal.

For sure I was born lucky and graced by dint of birth.
Secure, safe and protected from the terrors of this Earth.

I even watched the news each night to have a worldly view.
Despite all I saw, on the morrow, I did as I had been taught to do.

So far from my daily life and not part of my despair.
I got about my life's business and continued on without a care.

I don't know what caused a change, in how I view what life brings.
It seems that luck and randomness determine all varied things.

Through all of this I have come to doubt the culture of my youth.
I see the lives of the majority and doubt my world's so called truth.

I now see the selfish shape of the life that we are taught.
Where looking out for number one is the underlying thought.

My society favours wealth and it has an ingrained need.
To close it's eyes to despair in any form and to service only greed.

My eyes only ever were opened in a very temporary blink.
I feel the guilt and know the shame of how I was shaped to think.

Now without that social purpose that anchored my very sanity.
I feel despair at a world eyes closed, to the value of true humanity.
Tonight's news will be gone and forgotten tomorrow... unless we live it ourselves. My world was/is safe from wars, dictators and disaster. Even so... my neighbour may be homeless, sick or simply a survivor. I and most of my culture are heedless. Is that the same as not caring? Eyes are easily enticed to other things.
Tony Tweedy
Written by
Tony Tweedy  M/Australia
(M/Australia)   
226
 
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