In 1962, a very young 20 year old Bob Dylan sang the song, No More Auction Block For Me, in Greenwich Village, NYC. It is a song from the heart of an escaped slave. At heart, every slave longs to be free. Every one. Bob was not singing to any set of people, but to all who would listen. He made real and present what he was living. Imagination it was not. His show was authentic.

No more auction block for me

No more, no more…many thousands gone.

Today's professional sports drafting systems, what are they, really?

The massive education systems around the world, what are they, really?

The corporate employment web tied so closely with the education systems, what is it, really?

The ridiculous cyberspace systems offered to connect you to to clients and customers and fans to further your career, what are they, really?

The mind boggling, incomprehensible health care regimes, what are they, really?

The many election processes spread across the globe, what are they, really?

Auctions, auctions everywhere, count them if you care or dare.

No chains? no whips? no salt in the wound? Look into the hearts, I swear, it's all still there-

outrageous profits pour into the hands of mint julip sippin' porch sitters who secretly sneer-striking bargains in flesh with motion of a hand over here over there…

Then discarded heaps of bone.

Going. Go-ing. Gone.

A growling messenger came to town, the people listened and though they frowned

what won them over was just a moment on stage in a cheap plastic crown

and the new brand of awful games going down. Down. Down.

The kids of the sixties in the streets could not see the sneering enemy loves protesters who only wish to be free; so they ask him to jail them-

and thus let them be?

Dylan saw that which others have not-

the masters of war who carry no weapon call every shot…

Bang!

as a crowd of human beings rails at its oppressors this message:

Feed us! Feed us!

Give what you promised, we're weak and we're greedy!

Give what you promised, we're weak and we're greedy!

Give what you promised, we're weak and we're greedy!

Who are these human beings who not who they be?

I know of a world where kindness, generosity, and benevolence are every day all day long occurrences. You can live in the world I speak of if you want to live here. It is up to you. You can be here in no time at all. In less than the time it takes to blink you can be with me here. The distance to it is near.

In thoughts only do limitations abound to what I am telling. In thoughts only. Not really. In thoughts only. Not really.

So, I have  a friend who is one of my first sponsees in AA.  He has been sober up to five years back in the nineties and a few short times since. He is as good a human being as I have ever known.

He got into heroine a while back. His wife is an addict and her son as well.  All three have been living in the woods near the City. For a number of years my friend lived under bridge. We have talked off and on over these years but he could not really say he wanted to be sober. Recently he called and we talked and he said, I want to get sober. I heard that. We went for a ride to visit another alcoholic we both know who is sober and had a bad fall from a ladder on a job and was in ICU then the hospital and then rehab. He has serious injuries but is recovering. Shortly after that my friend called me to say he was catching a bus to a hospital to check himself in because he felt he was about to die. I visited him several times in ICU then in the general hospital and now he is in rehab.  He called tonight.  His voice is strong and he is laughing and he is so grateful to be alive.  He tells me the people at the Rehab are treating him so kindly he cannot believe it.  He is sleeping, eating like a horse and exercising.  They told him today they will try very hard when he is released to have him a place to live. He proudly told me they gave him some new clothes that match. Also because he pushes other patients around in wheelchairs they want to hire him. I will go visit him tomorrow, My heart soars like the hawk!  I heard a song this morning with this line in it and it is my life story.  It goes-

Stop fighting the fight that has already been won

ARREST and REMOVE

I met a woman educated in the study of criminology.

She wants to teach others. Said she learned that cops believe that they need to remain detached from a crowd or a suspect to do their job which is to arrest wrongdoers. The nut of it is these officers will not be so ready to club the people into unconscious blobs of meat for hauling to confinement and sentencing if they are not aloof to the fact these they arrest and remove are people like themselves. She is applying for a job as someone to play the role of an attached human being who will be used by cops to bring a message of sanity from the soul of humanity before the dogs are released, thereby allowing the cops to remain detached to do their brutal job well. Her job is to make it appear as if the politicians who hire the police and pay them really care. But the politicians' way to prove they are right is to trample on others. So, trample they must. After all, who will trust a brute who fails to trample?

What I say is that the very existence of a job to be performed by detached personnel is appallingly subhuman and destined to utter devastation if for no other reason than such a concept is going to bring about the very horror it is meant to prevent. Vain politicians send forth detached brutes to force upon all citizens their plans. They are convinced they alone are right and will not listen to anything that would suggest any other possibility and my friend will be in a position to aid and comfort such brutality.

I say any lawman who even considers the possibility of a state of detached authority should wear no badge whatever. We are human. To think otherwise is insane.

Somehow we have been brought to a way of thinking and acting that means a whole human being is incompetent to deliver justice.

Okay. So it is true that a person can get hurt in this world, just living. Especially so if that person is behaving recklessly and dumb. But, I want to know why we hurt each other? And ourselves. This is by far the most of it, injuries I mean. Down right vicious play, for what? Money? And wars? For what? Money? Property? If a man who sits at a desk offers to pay you vast amounts of money to beat another guy, a stranger who never did you any harm, senseless will you do it? Why?

Can you not say, No?

Why not?

Is it boredom?

If I am a rock star and somebody who wears a suit tells me he will pay me a lot of money to go on the road of his choice and on a rigorous schedule of his making and play many gigs night after night so I will be likely to resort to heavy doses of drugs just to keep my body going to complete the tour, will I?

Can you not say, No?

Why not?

Is it boredom?

Is it something you are trying to prove? Something you feel you must live up to?

Who would ask it of you?

I realized one day that most of it was to please people I detested and thought detested me. That hurt. My pride. And it was pride drove me to it. What?

So many friendly little guys you like have succumbed to a life of pride. Just makes you sad.

I heard that a fellow was a lonely, ugly teenager who had no friends left home completely unprepared to go into the wilderness more or less to die. Got lucky, I guess, and was found by some friendly Navajos who took him in and healed his wounds and then taught him the ways to live out West. When he grew up he repaid them by selling to the Army their secret hiding places for food and the Army used the information to starve them into surrender. Golly, that's sad.

Can you not say, No?

Why not?

I wonder.

Not needing to force ourselves to be TEAM players at all,

rather we need to be made to sound as notes played in Heaven

and be rediscovered in those chords each moment

as we sing:

Thy Will Be Done On Earth As It Is In Heaven

Resisting attempts by others to press me into a 

wad of their thoughts 

and toss me around like a ball 

I find difficult

but it keeps me alert and thereby in touch with

who I am

seems to prepare me to serve others suffering like 

pressurization

and so seems to work on my behalf after all

as a complete nobody