Chapter 1: The Language of Numbers

In a society dominated by data and metrics, you find yourself entrenched in a realm of charts and graphs. The language of statistics and documented truths fills your discourse. Rather than intrigue, this reality invokes my disdain. What you perceive as a crucible of ideas, I see as a stagnant pool.

You have exchanged your native tongue for the dialect imposed by authority. You’ve sealed away the joyful expressions of your childhood, sacrificing them at the gates of academia, a clear declaration: “Original thought has no place in the realm of learning.”

You have buried those cherished imaginations that ought to have flourished alongside you. In abandoning your creative companions, you wiped them from your memory like fog from a glass, turning away hastily before they could reemerge.

The vibrant worlds you once crafted in your backyard, like dazzling circus tents, have crumbled, piece by piece, struck down by the metaphorical mallet handed to you. The magnificent canopies that once supported your dreams have been reduced to mere shadows of their former selves, puddles at your feet, resized to fit neatly onto your spreadsheets.

You quickly dried your tears, fearful that they might witness your vulnerability. You reduced life to flat diagrams, transforming potential into limitations, cutting wings from flies, just as you did with angels, discarding their remnants into the trash, where they dissolved as swiftly as any other refuse in your corrosive reality. Through your gaze, only skeletal remains inhabit the skies, and all that looks down upon you are grinning phantoms.

You boast of possessing X-Ray vision, dismissing all alternative thoughts as mere shadows flickering on a screen. You reveled in your newfound perception, akin to a child who lifts their mother’s skirt for the first glimpse of her entirety. A curious explorer, your mind brimming with grime instilled by your educators, who trained their charges to perform scripted tricks while teaching their parrots to mimic the doctrines scrawled on their blackboards, derived from the remnants of those who preceded you, silenced and obliterated.

You, who deride those who discuss spirituality. You, who reject faith yet fail to recognize that you too are zealots of an extreme kind, blindly following your dogma without questioning its source. You, who eagerly absorbed every word served to you, never daring to challenge the hand that feeds you. Just another cog in the machine, shackled and herded along a singular path, you were never taught the essential skill of inquiry.

© Josh Lonsdale, 2020

Thanks for engaging with my work. Here’s more of my poetry:

Mr. Clean

He’s never late

Little Lambs

Brains wide open, half asleep

Vulture

A Free Verse Poem

Chapter 2: The Illusion of Freedom

This exploration of thought and identity continues with musical reflections on self-discovery and relationships.

In the first video, "You" by Benny Blanco, Marshmello & Vance Joy, the visuals and lyrics delve into the complexities of love and connection, mirroring the themes of personal sacrifice and identity in our society.

The second video, "You" by Regard, Troye Sivan, and Tate McRae, further explores these concepts, blending catchy melodies with poignant lyrics that resonate with the struggle for authenticity in a conformist world.