INTEGRITY

light and darkness:
option A has a list
of menu items.
Where am I and where are you?
see me.
touch me.
feel me,
and i you
alive or simply wondering,
a life well-lived
ought to have,
in the daily diet,  an ample dose of
undiluted
INTEGRITY.
what does this mean?
it is a simple word: INTEGRITY.
only 9 letters;
and yet it might be the most important word
in spoken language.
how so?
consider:
as a living organism,
a sentient creature
perhaps one chromosome removed
from the chimpanzee,
we homo sapiens
find ourselves on the pale blue dot of planet earth,
functioning as social creatures
with pauses for solitude.
we live and become aware.
ideally, continually aware!
but we are also continually at risk:
at risk of anxiety;
at risk of danger;
at risk of angst,
full well knowing there can be no ultimate security.
and yet,
as individuals in spirit, at rest and in our actions,
we journey forth on our path to discover who we are
at our DEEPEST level,
to make contact with our
HEART-MINDED source;
to become free!
and once free,
to defend our rational civilization and our common humanity,
by being neither a person of servile obedience
or a person consumed with the will to power.
we accumulate and hold tight to our collections
of what we feel is important for our completeness:
we gather pieces.
i feel that INTEGRITY
globally is a necessary part of compassionate nobility;
I see INTEGRITY
on an individual level
as part of our human consciousness
which refuses to trade freedom for security;
which refuses to abandon virtue,
and which stands above all for honesty and a clear vision
of our social contract.
INTEGRITY is our personal moral compass as much as the essential oar
which steers a storm-tossed boat
towards a community of equality, fairness,
and individual liberty.
we must guard this without compromise,
for it is what elevates us as loving creatures.