I Choose

I choose to be my own wheel of life.

To radiate love in a world aching with suffering.

I choose to pursue truth in a society that has lost its way, blinded by the lies of a divisive hierarchy that isn’t interested in enlightening us.

I choose to smile when meeting the eyes of strangers in the street, knowing they, too, are hurting, longing, hoping, dreaming, praying for change. Knowing that all anger is a manifestation of inner pain.

I refuse to pollute this world with my greed and selfish desire for power.

I choose to live freely and honour the inherent freedom in others.

To live by honour. A code filtered through my own values and constructs. Pissing in the face of our socio-economic, religious and political doctrines that strangle our lifeforce in the name of 'truth'.

I choose to be human, to feel human, in an increasingly inhumane world.

To enjoy endless pleasure without the guilt that all religions and power structures have sought to instil in us.

To feel each person I encounter as a human being, a soul living in a human form. Someone's daughter, lover, friend. A dreamer.

I choose to recognise that each of our lives is infinitely complex, denigrated and defamed by definitions and labels. That great experiential sonder.

To be blind to colour, sex, race, status, religious affiliations or political ideologies.

To see human and only human.

I choose integrity over success. Honour over fear.

To discern bullshit when I see it, regardless of how socially advisable it is to stomach it.

Dignity over conforming to a culture that robs its members of their birthright.

I choose life over death, respecting life wherever I encounter it and remaining curious about the mystery as the flame within all of us extinguishes all we once held so dear.

I will decide where to place my energy, not the corporations and vacuous sociopaths that have degraded our value structures and polluted our cities with false constructs of beauty, success, life, and love.

I would rather starve than live my life as a lie, as a slave to a system that sees nothing more than a utilitarian worth in all of us.

I choose art.

I choose laughter, poetry, music, good books, wine.

I choose to make love like it is my last hours on earth.

To truly feel another person.

To recognise the extent of my opinion is my entitlement to have it.

To see the beauty in the eyes of all those who walk these streets.

I choose lazy afternoons, reading books, sharing meals with new and old friends, and making love as the sun rises through the curtains.

I will not be told who I can marry,

fuck,

trust,

respect,

pray to,

hate.

I will not be told what I can ingest into my body.

I will not be told how I can expand my consciousness, drip-fed conveniently mind-altering substances that keep the wheels turning but deny expansion and insight.

I choose unity over separation, peace in a world aching with the miseries of war.

I choose to feel alive, to be alive, to feel the undulations of this human experience as they unfold free from censor.

I choose to trust in life, in myself, in the intelligence of the universe, and in the generosity of strangers.

I choose to believe that kindness is the inherent nature of all beings, and that fear is what hardens people’s hearts, not evil.

That everywhere, no matter where I lay my head, people want and deserve the same basic human tenets.

I choose to look for the beauty in this world, regardless of what I read on the news, hear at the dinner table, or see plastered around the walls of the cities.

I choose to be my own wheel of life.