Jack Pelham

Few are truly free to wonder about a thing—
To explore and test the truth of a matter
For the wonder of truth itself.

She noticed a bunch of stuff other people don’t notice
And then wrote a bunch of stuff about it that other people don’t read.

And that pretty much sums it up.

People used to think that humans could generally be counted on to act rationally in their own best interests. This idea is generally called something like the Standard Economic Model, but the cognitive science of the past few decades has blown this idea out of the water, beyond any hope of return. We now know better—that people frequently think, decide, believe, and act in ways that are irrational, and that end up being against their own best interests.

Funny, how the government
Can break all the rules,
And then claim that the citizens
Would be the rebellious ones
If they were to demand
That the government cut it out.

He asked them whether he had
Become their enemy by telling them the truth,
And I don’t know if I’ve ever heard
A bombshell of a question packed
With more implications than that.

To his dying breath
He will curse the wickedness of the tyrants—
His veins bulging, and beet-red in the face—
Thundering away at their transgressions
And calling down the fires of perdition
On their damnable heads.

God will know how to judge us fairly.
And those of us who desire a fair judgment—
And who think him wise—
Will be satisfied with that.

And the rest,
Not so much.

The young man wonders
What’s worth doing
With his life—
Which is quite the grand question
And well worth pondering.

And people are free to
Change their answer
From time to time.

And then one day
She came to life again.

I’ll never know what really happened,
But it was as if she had simply
Decided to be happy.

I do not know which I would prefer—
That in heaven, we should be
Instantly made aware of all knowledge,
Or that we might be left alone
To finish studying by ourselves.

The one seems as fantastic as the other.