Hello again Colin,
                  Thanks for the elucidation. It seems that in my reading I had got close to your intention although your slant is a little different, I mean you are comparing earlier ways of being or an `essential self´ (if it exists, as you quite properly ask. We won´t go into that one) with those learned in other circumstances. I was thinking more along the lines that any and every way of being is itself just a reflection of the surrounding circumstances. (So in fact I have said what I think about an `essential self´). However, approaching the poem from the angle you suggest, I wonder whether changing the word `heroic´ in line 4 to a word like `accepted´ or even `appropriate´, if it doesn´t have too many syllabubbles, might work towards that interpretation. 


Best wishes,   Mike



--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
Mike,

Thanks for your comments and I take seriously the hackneyed or trivial
parts. I needed another pair of eyes to see where they were.

Thanks also for your curiosity.You are right that it was intended as a young
person's poem. Their elders tell them, "To your own self be true" as they
are growing up but a year or two later hear, "When in Rome do what the
Romans do." On paper these are readily compatible e.g. can be tritely
synthesised to, "Be superficially flexible but inflexible at a deep level",
but I don't think it is as easy as that in any person's mind. What's deep
and what's superficial? The demands of the two need negotiated as a young
person takes responsibility for themself for the first time and continually
re-negotiated throughout life. Never more so than in this pluralistic age
with its vast demands on the plasticity of the personality. On top of that
we have the privilege of mixing with other cultures, while they still are
different cultures. So if you go to a different country and do a different
job (as I did when I wrote this poem) it may be necessary to develop a whole
new sub-personality to cope with the new conditions and then if you move
again the following year to another job and another country (as I did ) then
the process has to begin again. If not (and instead the new conditions are
expected to fall into line with the visitor i.e. changing the world) then
this leads to conflict and alienation. The question that occupied me then
was the relationship between such sub-systems and the essential self (if it
existed).


BW


Colin




----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2003 7:46 AM
Subject: Re: newsub/easier


Hello Colin,
            This is an intriguing and thought-provoking poem. My first
reaction, based on a very quick and superficial scan was not very positive
but fortunately I came back to it and thought a bit more. I´m still
undecided about what exactly to make of it. There are some phrases that on
their own seem a bit hackneyed or `trivial´. I put it in inverted commas
because it doesn´t say quite what I mean, but for instance the first two
lines of S2 initially elicited a bit of a groan. `Changing the world´ rings
a bit of teenage angst poetry. But I´ve decided that this response is not
adequate. In the context of the poem these lines fit and I´ve realised
there´s more going on here. I´ve got as far as seeing that your tv image is,
or may be,( I could be barking up the good old famous wrong tree) a way of
expressing the idea that consciousness simply reflects the world and culture
that it has been exposed to, rather as a film does ( I put this very
clumsily, but I know what I mean, I think). So the bottom line is, I´m still
thinking about this one. If you´d like to say something about your own view
of the poem it would be interesting to hear it.



Best wishes,   Mike





--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
In an Easier World

In an easier world
I might have pleased most people,
since most would agree
on the heroic mould,
but in this to please half
needs luck. Ideas
abound for how to be.

Must I resemble a television
which does not change the world
but is itself changed,
channel by channel,
whose pantheon of plastic heroes
is at best tongue in cheek,
a film of consciousness,
expanded on elaborate wiring?


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