Plan
a freeflowing poem
The plan was always the same. Set a goal that seems unachievable then make a plan that’s so shocking so that I can’t achieve it.
The flaw was always the same. Live exactly as I live but with the new plan. There’s a classic comic that asks a crowd, “Who wants the world to change?” and everyone raises their hand.
I see all the flaws in this world. It’s ignorance, malice, and inefficiencies. I see the hungry, the greedy, the bitter, and the unjust. Give me the power and I’ll change it now. Just give me the opportunity and I’ll move killers to kindness, kingdoms to communities. We’ll have industrious dreamers galore. People who are willing to fight for what they love but a world so beautiful that nobody’s knuckles ever bleed.
The comic then asks, “Who wants to change?” and every hand goes down.
The plan was always the same, change my life but never change. The plan always fails. Because I always change, I always grow. Even when I don’t hit the goal, my life changes. The way I live changes. The plan always fails but ultimately I succeed.
There is no doing without becoming. All I have is theory. All I have is idea. Practice. In practice, I see that I am exactly like most of them. In practice, I begin to unlearn myself. I become something else. Someone else. The same goal but I see it differently.
So I’m learning now what we’ve known for centuries. I change when I want the world to change. I am simultaneously immovable and unstoppable.
