Globalization PartVI

[Francis Don Daniels]

A flat world
is a hidden influence.

Its only power
lies in others
not knowing.

In a flat world
data is presumed true.
~~

Without a map,
without direction,
his "learning" a sham,
Chad reconciled himself
he'd been living
a lie.

Assuming the things
he'd been taught
as truth, only to see
their dead ends.

"Where is Truth?"
he mulled to himself.
"It's up to me to sift
through the chaos,
the debris, to find
my direction."

"My fault for not broadening
my horizons with courses
in Liberal Arts?"

"Might philosophy have given
the insights into life
I sorely lack?"

Chad rolled back
to college days and
disabused himself
of such notions:
Plato, an hour of drudgery,
where the professor expounded
Platonian reality
in differential calculus.

In one painful equation
after another, grating streaks
of chalk from a mad professor
who had gotten up
too late to dress
or neglected his laundry duties,
and moseyed in
in cut-offs frayed at the hems,
his shirt tails hanging
to the knees and wearing
flip-flops.

To Chad philosophy offered
little practical use and was
a waste of time and money.
There was endless studying
of one great thinker refuting another
which did little more than sell
textbooks and contribute
to one's neurosis.

"Should I have taken
more Psychology courses?
Maybe I would have seen
the manic traits of Wall Street
in time to act?"

But all through school,
Chad kept a quiet resentment
towards Psychology taking
the minimum credits
for graduation.

It all started in high school-
or maybe before-
with a teacher
he couldn't stand.
A Ms. Grimes who was
an authoritarian and Chad
to avoid confrontation would sit
to the rear where he pretended
to pay attention, feeling safe
at not getting caught.

Chad confessed.
"Well, there was stuff
I didn't understand
that made me spinny
and not want to take
more Psych courses.

Even so, Chad felt proud
he had not compromised himself,
not swallowed hook, line
and sinker. Refused to agree
that man was a dog or accept
barbaric treatments of electric-shock
and lobotomy as valid therapies
of the mind.

As if with a thunder clap,
Chad flashed back to church,
the Sunday School classes
he stopped attending.

"Oh. no!" he thought.
"I strayed from faith
and lost my way is
my undoing?"

But Chad recalled
one Sunday he had taken
a girlfriend to church-
A Spanish girl and Catholic-
and endured embarrassment
beyond belief as the preacher
delivered a scathing sermon
demonizing Catholicism.

And another preacher,
different church, absconded
with church funds
never to be seen
again.
~~

A flat world
has no barriers.
No windbreaks.

Its virus spreads
with wild abandon:
failing lives and
failing towns and
failing nations.

A failing world.

In a flat world
the hidden influence
insidiously resides
in institutions of learning
and temples of worship.

Contagion at the core
of civilization.
~~

Chad saw the trap.
Why he had falsely vested
hope in Wall Street.

To look out for number one,
to live for money was
all that remained
in a flat world.
~~

Chad was needing to escape.
He searched at the library
for a book to whisk him away.

After all the introspection,
there was still
no map,
no solution.

Only where it was not.

He recalled reading
a fantasy novel-
Battlefield Earth-
an author named Hubbard.
The parallels between
the book and the world
he now saw were
hauntingly similar.

Scrolling the catalog,
Chad saw another
of Hubbard's novels-
Mission Earth.

"Great! I'll check
that one out."

In the listing
another entry caught
his searching eyes.
It sounded nothing
like fantasy.

Chad continued scrolling,
but the queer title
kept calling him back
like an unfinished dream.

He rolled back
to the curious entry, staring
at the screen
in disbelief.

Chad blinked and squinted,
refocusing the words
before his eyes still unsure
at what he read:

"A New Slant On Life".

"Can this be?" he thought,
pulling back his enthusiasm
still cynical and suspect
such thing existed.

But he had
to find out
for himself.
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.

[Francis Don Daniels]

I piloti non sono stati paura
dalla forza della loro interno spada
e il vento cesso' di urlare
e il gatto ha cessato di ringhiare...
Love Don

[Pier Paderni]

"....Outside in the distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
The wind began to howl "
Love Pier

[Pier Paderni]

"....Outside in the distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
The wind began to how "
Love Pier