November 09-B, 2022

Determining what is necessary
and what is not
is an individual responsibility
and a personal right.

You cannot impose what is necessary for you
onto me, 
or anyone else.
Our necessities/urgencies are ours alone
to know and to do.

Our ability to size things up
and to be correct in our appraisals
of what constitutes an urgent necessity
varies from person to person,
and sets us apart from one another
into broad categories
of those who know,
and those who do not know,
who they are 
and what needs to be done.

We march to the beat of different drummers--
that is a necessity incumbent upon us all.
How well we recognize, 
accept that,
and place ourselves in accord with it,
tells the tale,
the tale that is ours to tell
with the way we live our life.

Doing what we determine to be necessary
in each situation as it arises,
what is needed,
what is called for,
what is urgent,
and what is to be done
is a reflection 
of who we are
and what tune we march to.

The more we are ruled be the culture
and ways of some collective,
the less we can claim to be individuals
in our own right,
and the less human we are
and more like automatons we become.

Whose song are you singing
with the life you are living?
Whom do you look to
before deciding what to do?
Who directs your life
on its journey through each day?
Who decides what is necessary for you,
and what is not?

–0–