"individualism" poems
When people ask if you're weird, or tell you,
or want to believe themselves strange,
eclectic, or odd.
It's vaguely disgusting to me,
cringeworthy in a mild degree.
We think we're so different,
but we are not.
The individualism of people
should be and is comparable
to the individualism of ants.
Who looks at the anthill and
sees something in particular,
something behaving specifically
"uniquely"
from every ant and every anthill?
Why do you believe in yourself?
I see this, as a conversation about
depression, and your partner
does not respect you
but instead wants to
tell you how they feel worse,
or have it worse, or "understand" more
about the affirmation or situation.
A person looking for individuality
through a lens of misery, anguish, and sadness,
is truly alone in their minds, and missing the
reality that these depressions exist without them.
The statement, "you are not alone" is an attack,
or an offense to these people, because it says
"you are not as unique as you think",
it strips them of their identity and individuality.
This is true of many ideologies and affirmations.
I quit individuality, this constricting sense
of holding everything of yourself in center,
to be a drop in the whole, something fluid.
If you split your affirmations from yourself,
you'd see we're all the same;
Affirmations are just currents in the ocean.
I look at myself; and people see a man,
a radical feminist, and sometimes a musician.
As labels, these each have their own presupposed notions,
[especially, "man" or "male" in the patriarchal gaze]
which hardly, if ever, are true,
but as affirmations, when I consent to using them,
these are no longer stereotypes that constrain me,
but similarities that I realize
I can embrace or shut out in others.
Affirmations do not make me more unique,
but similar to more people.
If I remove these affirmations to try and get to my "true" center,
my purest form of self, I see I am without meaning.
This is why I quit Individuality.
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 1:59 PM UTC
I wear beads and African bracelets for beauty. I forget why the people before me wore them. I wear them with pride not because I earned them but because I simply look beautiful. Beautiful!? What does that even mean? My Nana has scars on her body. She shows them to me with pride. Narrates stories of the war in the past like an action movie only she didn't have a gun only bows and poisonous arrows. The missing teeth in her mouth causes her to spit almost every second she talks. But this embarrassment is only felt by me. She is proud of the hole in her mouth. Suddenly I feel the urge to remove my African beads. They have no meaning only that they are African and I am and so am entitled. But I have done nothing for my heritage. Not even fight for it. Slowly it's being forgotten and people are crossing over without a care in the world. 'To civilisation' we say. 'For the good of the people' we say. But is it? We were a community wrong as we were to circumcise women, marry them off at an early age, burn the wrong... We were a community. We loved each other. We cared. We taught our children how to feel and be the earth. We taught our children to respect the earth and in return the earth blesses us with herbs to cure. What did they call it? Aaah yes 'witchcraft'. We were not animals who forget their children in pit latrines or by the river side just because we cannot afford them or don't want them. We cared not of individualism because together we grew in spirit, body and soul. It was not backward it was culture. And culture is flexible. It can change but can never be terminated. It is not a shoe that when you grow out of you throw and buy another.
And so I am not telling you to go back to your roots because if am quite honest you were never in it. Rather embrace it. See how 'civilised' you will feel then.
yours
The Red_Head
Jun 21, 2017
Jun 21, 2017 at 3:08 AM UTC
Income is an intangible,
Taxes are an intangible,
Neither exists right now,
Only the promise of it in the future...
That's what credit is... a bet against a promise.
Which means all of nothing,
since it hasn't happened yet,
all credit is risk of one degree or another,
...based on tolerance or gumption.
If all people are, "risky,"
then all credit is risk,
none can be more credit-worthy;
less risky...
So why not turn future liabilities into income,
instead of future income into a liability?
Hmm...
Impossible?
Yeah, ...since anything that gives ordinary people power must be impossible. Jesus must not believe in individual power. The Founding Fathers must not have believed in individualism. No, ...only the state backed by a selected wealthy few should determine everyone's fate by economy.
Only a few should have it all....
...no opportunity for anyone else; the weak, poor, untalented, ugly, simple, ordinary, dumb, handicapped; those ones don't matter.
Just NFL players count.
Only singers and actors count.
Only bankers and doctors matter.
Jesus would agree.
Makes so much sense?
Nov 3, 2016
Nov 3, 2016 at 11:58 PM UTC
All the experiences
from life's coffers
I'm willing to take
To commit into text
with deliberate romanticism
My brand of unspoken poetry
with sense
only I can make
To rebut
my mind's
skeptic cynicism
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 7:34 PM UTC
If you grasp tight to your
individualism,
Give in to all the
romanticism,
Rid of any
materialism,
Confide within
professionalism,
Drop all acts of
favoritism,
Eject from any
vulgarism,
Open up to
socialism,
Advocate
activism,
Realize you are an
organism,
Forget about any
perfectionism,
And explore inside
transcendentalism,
You will look up into complete
mesmerism
of how all the stars are
symbolism
for the billion versions of
creationism
that you've ever lived,
and will live.
Sep 13, 2011
Sep 13, 2011 at 8:57 PM UTC
The real subjectivity of life is overwhelming;
Prospective consumes our frontal cortex
But there is no escape from this vacuum seal.
We see the faces of our own delight,
The know how of the here and now,
But we are too blind to look past our own perspectives.
Even when we fathom the hearts of others,
Our understandings are predisposed to our own Identity.
Objectivity is a fleeting notion of reality, of truth
and its as though the ground we hold so dearly
Is constantly fleeing from our grasp.
Today we call this individualism,
a disconnect between one's self and society.
But I so selfishly and foolishly believe
that this chasm stems from being lied to so often.
Am I lying to myself or am I being lied to I do no know,
but it is important to understand that it does not matter
that nothing matters, because everything exists in my field of view.
The only question remains: am I correct
Or has the devil made me a fool?
But this does not confirm nihilism
only hints at its initial potential.
Yet there are common truths that are irrefutable
no matter who you are, real or not:
The reality is the here and now,
No matter what ghosts or demons there may be.
They affect the consciousness constantly
indifferently to whether or not they are fraudulent or true.
And my experiences are true, the emotions are radical,
and even if everyone I know is a figment and interpretation,
they still hold a grasp onto my withering heart.
Nov 14, 2018
Nov 14, 2018 at 1:28 PM UTC
He who leads is wonderous indeed
and those who follow are surely weak
I want to break the pack mentality
and rise individualized
For a pack is only as strong as one
Imagine the army we could create
Jan 9, 2013
Jan 9, 2013 at 3:24 PM UTC
So many succumb to Group Think
in such a way that it is dangerous.
From a young age, though I knew not yet of the notion,
I rejected opinions passed to me as fact
for the reason that opinions are subjective:
I did not hold as 'beautiful' what they told me I ought to.
I did not hold as 'wondrous' what they said was so.
I did not hold as 'difficult' what others had not yet accomplished.
I did not regard as 'easy' what others had yet done.
I was not serious when they told me I must be.
I made jokes when they deemed it distasteful.
I laughed at the hypocrisy, right in it's face.
I didn't just lay down and accept it as fate.
I did not like the music they told me to like.
I did not believe the biased history they taught as absolute and true.
I did not worship the mythic Gods they made to be literal.
I refused to pledge my allegiance in a brainwashed mass
to any flag of any nation under any God with Liberty and/or Justice for merely a few.
Over time I acquired my own taste for these things:
I grew to appreciate the discrepancy
between what I was told
and what I observed.
From there, I formulated my own opinions,
I became an Individualist.
A Heretic.
They sure don't make it easy.
Individualism, to me, does not connotate isolationism,
though with isolation can come self-awareness and self-discipline.
Individualism, to me, refers to finding one's own Path;
being a Heretic; staying true to your own Path.
To be a Rebel to undue Authority.
To not be afraid to defy your peers.
To be an Anarchist within one's self.
To practice Civil Disobedience.
Plus, the friends you will make if you live this way
will blow your ******* mind
and last you a lifetime.
-
Opinions are never concrete; they must curve and morph with the ebb and flow of your particular life.
Opinions and Taste must be relative to one's own personality and life if they are to be genuine.
Even still, the pull of the social tide is not so easily resisted:
You are succumbing to Group Think
even more than you might think
but I think, or at least I think (that) I think
that we can all overcome Group Think
if we would all just stop and think.
Don't you think?
Apr 10, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 at 5:54 PM UTC
Who am I? Who am I?
A question I always find myself asking and yet I have no idea why.
Almost as if I expect the answer to fall right out of the sky.
But seriously, do you know who I am?
I pretend that I don't give a ****
When really it's an act; a sham.
Feeling like you do not fit.
Honestly it feels like pure ****
I don't fit into society's giant puzzle.
If my opinion is outside the majority, well let me put it this way, if I were a dog they would force upon me a muzzle.
Freedom of expression.
Really? I think they mean repression.
Do this! Do that!
She's too thin! He's too fat!
He must go here! Now put her there!
All we seem to receive are your endless commands.
Expected to follow at clicking of your fingers or the clapping of your hands.
Did you ever stop to think that maybe we have other plans?
Have you turned me into some kind of drone?
Is my mind no longer my own?
Are my individual and unique thoughts not allowed to be known?
Somehow this hierarchy needs to be overthrown.
We need to let our shining personalities be shown.
Celebrate Individualism!
Let us express, share and have optimism!
And even scepticism!
Being ourselves is a basic human right!
Thank you and good night!
Jan 4, 2015
Jan 4, 2015 at 7:25 AM UTC
Anyone who disses you for your style
is merely too ashamed of themselves
to allow their own style to shine through.
If it makes you happy
and it doesn't hurt others,
then do it without shame,
for it is only because others have done the same
that any established style exists at all.
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 1:34 AM UTC
Black
A thumping heartbeat
Distant vocal sounds
Then light and love
Dependency
Curiosity
Communication
Joy
Creativity
Education
Awe
Respect
Disrespect
Comradery
Individualism
Tribalism
Recklessness
Lust
Love
Heartbreak
Hopelessness
Soul searching
Understanding
Trust
Empathy
Maturity
Desire
Love
Babies
Selflessness
Responsibility
Nurture
Wonder
Teaching, endless teaching
Let go
Let go
Let go
Review
Regret
Reinvent
Rediscover
Relive through grand kids
Leave your mark
Not a stain
Your life ends it's final wane
Then humbly...
back to
Black
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 9:34 AM UTC
It caught me off guard, this sudden feeling of loss, this sense that something beautiful was gone forever. I didn't know what to do with it, this overwhelming idea that now, out of neglect or shame or starvation, a work of art had withered away into nothing.
I suppose that I'm beginning to understand that the world isn't a narrative, it's not a story by an author with a plot and a hero.
This is the essential fallacy taught to children with a streak of the hopeless romantic in them:
the desperate belief that somewhere out there is a place for people who live their lives waiting for King Arthur instead of Jesus.
And even now, with every word comes the terrifying truth that my babbling is going to change absolutely nothing, not a single atom is going to **** an electron on the completion.
I won't feel better, the situation won't change, you the reader aren't going to say EUREKA!!!! at the end of it, so what's the point?
Expression, that is the point of it, and to be be completely blunt about it all, I hope some one I love and admire will read this and say the typical things that are said when people are honest on public forums. Do I have a point? No, not really.
So what do I do with this loss, this empty fireplace in my soul?
I drink and smoke and **** it away, stay so busy that I don't have time to consider it, this knowledge that the fire has gone out. How typical of me, how unoriginal and bourgeoise to write another ode to the trials of the individual.
Who am I to feel loss and pain when my stomach is full and my needs are met?
Aren't I another servant of economic output?
Should I not donate time and money to a cause more worthy of respect than a withering example of excessive individualism such as myself?
No, and what's more, **** you society, **** you for taking away the only haven I ever had: my head. **** you for marketing my imagination,
for inventing a bunch of ******** about responsibility for the greater good,
for poisoning the little freedom I do have with feelings of uselessness.
And most especially **** you for your greatest crime of all;
implanting this feeling of guilt whenever I do anything with my own well-being in mind.
You have created a system that perpetuates itself on shame and output,
you have killed the desire to create for it's own sake.
**** you, and I'm going to unplug from you if it's the last ****** thing I ever do.
Jul 16, 2013
Jul 16, 2013 at 10:06 PM UTC
* *A tear is shed
For those who are blind to the beauty of this world
Who can only feast on sarcasm, writhing in irony
* *It soon evaporates.
Pictures of a future dressed in ribbons and lace, cast off and burned
Pictures of the future carrying disdainful dystopia, infamous for invalids
Hung to admire in sublime distaste by those that seek knowledge
And see the repetitious antiquities of time that come to pass
But others care not for plans and the imminent
Those that keep to the light of the gas
And carry the past to the present
Hoping for trends to try again, reliving what they had never lived
Laconic and loquacious in emotions and words
Against the gossip, but paradoxically
Pushing for the creation of their “ritualistic social Golgotha”.
Those who abuse the glory of their munificent, malicious mentality
Pathetically unable to procure authentic happiness
A tear is shed.
Inside the recesses of the soul where emotions dare not dwell.
It too evaporates.
Trapped in fear and the “cliched harlequin speech of suicide”
Begging for the masses to cast them out and find each other
A tear is shed.
Never seen but felt as it evaporates.
Felt by those who envelop themselves inside themselves
Those who plagiarize their sick self-conscious souls
Those who bring about the very misfortune they strive to devour
Those who are effortlessly envied as they exploit their habitual recreations
By those who wouldn’t dream of falsified euphoria
Those who bastardise and deface the name of creative individualism
As waters of the soul are purged and discarded
They are felt by those
And are quickly washed away in doubt and regret
Keeping to the light of the gas, dangerous and warm
Feb 25, 2013
Feb 25, 2013 at 10:48 PM UTC
built to be torn
grown and then chopped,
we are.
set up in a mainstream world
blindly unaware that acceptance
is just an illusion with false hype
of great importance.
with conformists scared of 'insanity'
and shunning as the cure for all fear,
individualism falls.
society mindlessly pushes difference
off a black and white cliff
to decompose in a sea of acidic hate.
just for being content with our oddities,
we are shut down like the ignorant.
oh, how unfortunate we are
to be cursed with a brain.
Jan 29, 2019
Jan 29, 2019 at 5:46 PM UTC
duck face to fish gape
snap chatting **** pics
instagraming the ******
narcissism holds sway a nation –
apathetic selfie queens
scroll past Syria
to delve deeply
into the Minaj/ Swift debacle
shackled minds line mall walls
behind shines the toothy grin
of sinister consumer based
individualism..
a schism widens as the generational divide
resembles a large impressive Grand Canyon…
as opposed to the little crack in south Colorado –
Oct 8, 2015
Oct 8, 2015 at 5:40 PM UTC
Do you see what I see?
Do you see the children in the streets?
Living on the streets
With no father or mother?
Do you see what I see?
Do you see the poverty and hunger and illness
Rampant
And the people, not Westerners, but the fellow countrymen
And women
In India and Congo and Uganda and Afghanistan
That work to put an end
To the injustice
Do you see the what I see?
The world
With glimpses of its entirety
Beyond the shallow bubble of existence
In a land of milk and honey and comfort
That hides its own injustices
In a closet where nobody wants to look
And everyone knows of
But almost everyone ignores
And in amongst that hypocrisy
Do you see the people
Speaking out
And fighting for you to see
What they see
Do you see the people
Reaching out to those in need
In their families and their communities
Out of compassion
People who understand
Really understand
What it is to love
Because they choose love
In the face of apathy
Ignorance
Materialism
and Individualism
That is what I see
When I look outside my window
Is this what you see?
Feb 6, 2013
Feb 6, 2013 at 1:30 PM UTC
"It's okay for them to do it differently,
they're from over there.
If you're over here and you don't do it like us,
there's something wrong with you."
Why cant we just agree to do it differently?
Why does it have to matter?
Nov 27, 2014
Nov 27, 2014 at 2:15 AM UTC
Currently we judge,
Looking at angles to win
Just to please your own mind.
We throw insults and we fight,
We ignite fuel to our fingers
Tapping away like it's a race for popularity.
The world spins and spins,
Yet nothing really changes
Because we just keep spinning.
But it's as if we have weaved
Ourselves into a ditch of
Despairing linear paths.
As we watch, we listen, we observe
And try to become something else,
Something we're not supposed to be.
Just to let everyone know
That you watch the same things,
That you do the same things.
But then after it all we realise
As we grow older and as we mature,
We merely did nothing for ourselves.
We just followed the same road,
We followed the same destiny
And we lose ourselves in our journey.
At the end of it all we start to notice
We have taken the wrong path,
And the other roads are too far away.
So we turn into the side-roads,
Which lead to nothing but plagued floors
Broken doors and empty souls.
Mobiles have taken love out of ***
Generations have missed out
How it feels to actually be connected.
You make love and your phone rings,
People stop to answer like your moments
Aren't precious enough with loved ones.
We eat meals at restaurants
With our families and friends,
All I see is arched necks and fiery fingers.
I wish I was in a time when we spoke
To one another about our days,
Not about a video that has gone viral.
I wish that as I grow and my children
Will walk amongst the earth I have,
It won't **** them into inevitable fates.
I don't want them to be another
White sheep hopping the same fence,
Like the rest of this miserable world.
Systems have taken individualism
Out of individuals and get labelled weird,
They give us titles like "OCD, ADHD".
I'm not either, and I don't actually have
A label to my name, yet I feel I should
I feel why shouldn't I?
After all I like to think different,
I like to think one day we will see
The clear glass in front of us.
But most of all, I truly hope one day,
We can become a better world
Instead of repetition in characters.
Jul 23, 2017
Jul 23, 2017 at 6:04 AM UTC
Hate and ridicule comes to the forefront. Anyone who disagrees is a bigot you see. Differing opinions must be silenced, that is just how it has to be. Hiding behind children used as human shields, to deflect attention from the problems that are all too real. Spreading lies and fomenting dissent, that is the mantra they live by everyday. Dissenting at the ideas of cutting a budget or project, that uselessly gives tax dollars away. Individualism is overrated, on government you must depend. If you dare to move off of the grid, you must be insane. A disease for the unwashed masses who walk around like a heard of Lemmings. Liberalism, the modern incarnation of Marxist communism.
Nov 17, 2016
Nov 17, 2016 at 1:21 PM UTC
see we don’t take anything too seriously
meet up at my place for some bull ****
splashing in a pool of **** your stuff
they only told us to do as we were told
so we always did the opposite
calling self-destruction noble individualism
take a GB or two or however many get’s the job done
I hear some medicinal **** is coming to town
and yeah grab me another beer
because it’s noon and today still looks ugly
muscles are tripping on lactic acid
stomach growling
but the coffee keeps the leash tight
when the word sober puts your teeth on edge
and the part-time gig scratches your throat
we’re the silly people who weave in and out
of anonymity
with music too loud
and choices too poor
the junkies and jokers are carrying me to the river
because it gets hard to paddle upstream sometimes
and laughter is really only the second best medicine
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 2:29 PM UTC
"My burden of being is mine alone. What would YOU understand?"
Oct 20, 2018
Oct 20, 2018 at 4:38 AM UTC
Burning
The fire is glowing set against the chill of autumn’s night wind the chimney discharges the inner being of
The wood truly the spirit of the wood rises ghostly it breaks out of the chimney and is welcomed by the
Wayward wind lessoned of its density but an exchange occurred for its value memories it took while the
Elderly mother set close for its comfort and warmth as the shadows played on her face of age it told
Many stories of struggle and triumph father earned the money by back breaking work in a dark coal
Mine mother took it thanked the good lord then raised it to masterful heights with skill and cooking
Lessons learned from her mother time draws definitive measures in each life now having reached a
Seasoned long life milestone her tender heart was the capstone walls and windows a sturdy life looking
Like beams as the shadows of the fire danced on the wall below what mellow note it struck and she it’s
Center piece buy the night with her humility and genteel ways the rush of power still evident in her frail
Frame life glowing in the midst of the fire’s own showing strength her wisdom the families guide hard to
Believe that a personality so affable and giving could coil as steel if the need arose pushed to a point but
No further you don’t raise a family and see them succeed without having a store house of individualism
In reserve now all that shows on the service is a profound goodness displayed in weak frailty the body
Slows its tempered power subsides but within the spirit still can be counted on for feats and exploits as
The demand calls for them even a fire dies down but all it needs is the stoking some of the wood has
Been turned from the flame within short time it will roar with new glory old age isn’t a total defeat
You can change the pace and years of experience will give control with less effort the fire plays on
Mother’s breath softens as she drifts in dreams to grand times when all was collectively connected
Honor and glory told over successive years now they are harbored and restored to a degree by the
burning
Nov 24, 2011
Nov 24, 2011 at 1:59 PM UTC