The idea of “necessary evil”

Is only plausible if you

Mistakenly equate evil with pain.

Reject the premise,  then

Evil is never necessary.

 

Pain, on the other hand, is a different story

For human life to even exist

There is the matter of the

Pain of childbirth

 

              [Notice to all women

              but especially my wife, my daughter, sister-in-law, and my three nieces,

              who are all still living and thus can undoubtedly

              find me wherever I tried to hide:

                           I do hereby submit and testify

                           that I, a mere male,

                           have very little, if anything,

                           to say about the pain of childbirth,

                           except to offer an apology to my wife,

                           which even she recognizes (on good days) is unnecessary

                           since I only indirectly caused the pain, and

                           it was worth it, as anyone who knows our children

                           and brand-new grandaughter can attest.]

 

Pain is routinely experienced as a

Sometimes necessary,

Though not sufficient,

Aspect of normal life:

             Physical pain:

                           Setting a broken arm

                           Pulling or filling an infected tooth

                           The mere fact of growing in adolescence

                           Nerves firing to indicate damage to tissue

             Emotional pain:

                           Loneliness

                           Rejection

                           Insufficiency,

                           Some of which is experienced as part of the natural human condition.

 

Granted, the connection between evil and pain is well-established.

A major aspect of evil is intentionally inflicting unnecessary pain.

 

So can we stop with the “necessary evil” comments and

Use “evil” only when we mean “evil”?

Much is at stake because evil abounds, and

Much of this abounding evil is portrayed as natural, even necessary, by

Those who

Use evil as a weapon,

And those who

Are too stupid or gullible or politically motivated or morally bankrupt to

Realize that they are pawns of evildoers

When they are enablers or accomplices of those

Perpetuating “necessary evils.”

Some days it seems senseless

This fooling with words

At least a waste of time

Precious time I now

Have less of while fooling

With words when I could

Be putting words together

To market or teach

Or even manage or

Preach or something that’s

Practical, anything

Practically speaking

That pays some bills, but no!

For even as I

Write about the utter

Senselessness that is

Fooling with words I am

Filled with the sense that

Words...

And it no longer seems

Senseless, this fooling

With words...

Until it does

     (With thanks to Bill Moyers who wrote a book about poetry called, Fooling With Words)

Life is a gift

We do nothing to be born

In infancy, we would die without care

DNA is a gift of two parents

Regardless of how those two

Sources of DNA combined to become us

We spend our lives making something with our DNA

But that it is our DNA

Does not mean that it is in our control

It is a gift

To “nature” we add “nurture” (our “second nature”)

Which is also gift

Inspiration, motivation, patience, impatience

Prodding and pulling us along our life cycle

Making time and marking time

All gifts we either

Accept or not

Recognize or ignore

Of this learned behavior

Gratitude becomes essential to life, or not

Learned first as please

And thank you

Expanded to you’re welcome

The parent thing is working

If three of the first words your toddler learns are

Peas, tanks, and whek

Used with increasingly less prodding with

Approximately appropriate timing and context

Then there are a series of gratitude road bumps

Associated with the “twos” (as in “the terrible…”)

Adolescence (the real thing (non-pre-)), and

Young adulthood

Through which some

But not all

Emerge recognizing that we

Are not the center of the universe

Or even the better half

The mark of the successful emergence from

Life’s version of the Bermuda Triangle

Is gratitude

Remembering (without having to be reminded) to say

Please, thank you, and you’re welcome