by Robert Markland Smith.
Are you a troubadour? A singing and dancing highwayman? A disciple of François Villon? Are you going to take off through Africa, smuggling weapons like Rimbaud? Perhaps you have traveled through China, like Blaise Cendrars; perhaps you are a globetrotter.
Do you fit into the System, the Society into which you were born? Do you have enough Imagination to wander aimlessly through a morning in your own mind? Do you have to have a Program for every step you take and every penny you spend?
On the other hand, are you a free spirit? (Are there still any free spirits left, now that the Holy Spirit has begun leaving the Earth?) Do you have the soul of a poet? Are you gifted with genius?
No, sometimes I meet people who are walking/talking prose. They take pleasure in their own prejudice and righteousness. They are always right, because they never stray from the frying pans and lawn mowers of cliché. (If you never take a chance, you can never fail.)
Why don’t you kick up your heels, and take off hitchhiking to India? You might be reborn as a rolling stone. Right now, you are just gathering moss, learning the same lessons over and over and over again: a broken record.
I know dozens of places where you can meet adventure on a street corner, under the guise of magic, disguises, delirium, madness, and other opiates. Why not cultivate wanderlust? Why not attempt life? Why not sing a song, right here and now?
Hey, Louis Armstrong told us that it is a wonderful world. Don’ t prove him wrong. Don’ t let yourself down. Be faithful to your creative spirit. Wake up; the sun is shining somewhere. Go find it!