I was thinking...

What secrets spoken    have gathered in the clouds?    and how long 'til they rain,    giving seeds of shame the pain they need to bloom?

Seven blind children on    a dead man's grave: The first started digging    and the second ran away, The fifth heard and echo    as the seventh crushed the fourth, The third was buried South,   and the sixth burned in the North.

Years went by, much the same as the rest, until, one day, the younger received word that the elder's wife had died. He felt a dust-mite of sorrow, but that was quickly replaced by a tick of high-minded absolution for the elder. The elder, in the eyes of the younger, had wasted the bulk of his life on a blind notion--the stubborn idea that his wife and marriage were truly worth all of that time and energy, only to see them both die. He laughed to himself and almost reveled in the thought that the elder was coming to this same realization. On the day, after the elder's quiet eulogy, sunny rain cried over the floating casket as it was lowered. "You deftly captured your feelings for the wife, my old friend," offered the younger, in the brightest corner of the mortuary. The elder was too broken to be corrective. "That is appreciated," he said, almost to the floor. The silence in the air felt like it was looking for the nearest exit. Suddenly, energy long lost ha...

You have been selected to take this simple morality-based questionnaire. Please note that these questions are written to address morality on the most basic level, with full awareness of the relativity of moral standards across the spectrum of humanity. Please be honest with your answers. *Disclaimer*: If your answers are unsatisfactory, you will forfeit your citizenship to the country in which you currently reside for the sake of its greater population, and you will be declared persona non grata  in that country, for life. If your answers are satisfactory, you will remain a citizen, or be granted official and legal citizenship. Answer the following: 1. You brought your toddler with you to the store, and it's hot outside. Do you:     a. Leave the toddler in the vehicle with the doors locked and the windows rolled all the way up.     b. Not do answer "a". 2. You are at a national park with your friends and you come across a natural phenomenon, s...

Children are expected to do things and be things adults no longer feel like doing or being. For example: children are expected to be nice, eat healthy, be active, learn new things, and comply with social standards--whether in a home, a classroom, or in public. The adults who expect these things are often no longer willing to be or do most of them, if any of them at all. They eat "whatever [they] want," do "whatever [they] want," and don't adhere to common social standards of politeness or following rules. However, the most important thing adults expect of children but not of themselves is an ancient word: resilience ( resilience (n.)  1620s, "act of rebounding," from Latin resiliens , present participle of resilire "to rebound, recoil," from re - "back" (see  re- ) + salire "to jump, leap" (see  salient  (adj.)).) Legend has it adults were once quite resilient. But, that was millenia ago, recorded on stone tablets in...