Poem: The milieu of life

Like a gigantic spider web

Life throws both foe and friend

Into a horrendous game of survival

With every calculated move, life fiddles with our sanity

Encapsulating us in uncertainty and fear

Until we are irrational in our desire to succeed

That we step on each other’s toes and heads

We become immersed in our own survival

That we trample on the basic ethos of our collective consciousness

Causing shear stresses on the fabric of our own existence

This is the chronic wearing and tearing of the capsule of life

This poisonous survival of the fittest game is not sustainable

It is causing unimaginable damage to the environment (e.g. global warming)

It is the cause of civil strife all over the world

Inequality, gender-based violence and poverty are symptoms of this toxic environment

It is the basis of hatred, racism and xenophobia

It has caused so many conflicts between mothers and daughters

Fathers and sons, neighbours, colleagues, friends, to mention but a few

It has torn apart entire families, tribes, cultures and nations

It is a source of the internal bleeding inside our human psyche

Pushing our daily stress levels to the highest levels

Culminating in the emergence of an irrational human species

Totally deficient in common sense and lacking the human touch

The milieu of life was deliberately constructed by mankind

In their bid to outwit and outcompete each other

Humanity created a monster that gobbles on his children, women

And the vulnerable

The game of survival spews toxic material into our environment, each other

And everything that matters to the continued existence of life

The game of survival emanates from our dependence on logic

The abandoning of consciousness or spirituality as the basis of life

And the reckless pursuit of material wealth

The same merchants (politicians, economists, scientists) trying to fix the world’s problems

Are the facilitators and sponsors in this worldwide game of survival

We have only one antidote against this malignant tumour

Unconditional Love is the only therapy to our collective consciousness

Until we learn to love one another, we are doomed

©Kenneth Maswabi