The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

By William Butler Yeats

I’ve been thinking about those two lines:
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

If by doubt we’re proven to be the best of men, I’m ready to ascend to Olympus.

Anger isn’t going to solve anything, and it turns to poison quickly. I don’t look at anything in modern politics or current events and think, ‘I wish there was more anger here.’ But anger isn’t necessarily bad. It’s just often misused. The trick is taking anger and using it for good, not to hurt the bad guys but to help everyone.

I don’t know how to do that right now. I’m working on it.

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