Origin of a Species

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

As I grow old, I seem to identify less and less with the world as it is today, not least for years of hormone therapy for my prostate cancer depriving me of so many happier memories relating to much happier times. If I had known when my cancer was first diagnosed, I would have chosen to have no treatment at all. 

But... it is as it is, and no one to blame but myself. I suspect many of not most of us we make as many bad as good choices in life. 

We do have choices, though, even if ‘freedom” of choice’ has become something of an exaggeration. Why, for example, if a person’s quality of life has become barely tolerable does assisted suicide remain illegal? Various world religions will argue against it, of course, but why should someone who doesn’t even subscribe to these be made to continue suffering or die by their own hand alone? Even if one does subscribe, how does suffering and/or dying alone equate with the God of Love religious bodies are so anxious we should believe in... or what? 

Some religions would see me in Hell because I am gay, but sexuality is not a choice, it is no less an aspect of the human condition than heterosexuality; being of any LGBT persuasion is simply human, and does not deserve either the hate crime or bad press to which we are often subjected, even in a supposedly ‘civilised’ 21^st century. 

History shows that prejudices and bigotry have always existed in various societies and communities worldwide, but if history is an evolving process in the living drama that is a common humanity... how come swathes of common humanity remain hug-up on various sexual, racial and gender prejudices...to name but a few? 

We may well have good reason not to like someone (and they, us) but that’s personal; nurturing any prejudice against someone simply on the grounds of their gender, ethnicity or sexuality... well, that takes ‘personal’ to a new and wholly unacceptable level. (Well, doesn’t it...?) Mind you, I suspect I am not the only person weary of being accused of bigotry when the tensions between me and others have been of a purely personal nature...  

It really is a mad, mad, mad world. 

ORIGINS OF A SPECIES 

I come into the world as I am,
leave it as it has made me, for better or worse,
in sickness or in health,
much the same whole as started out
for all its parts shaping
and reshaping me depending on how the world
would have me be, and resistant
I may prove to be in the face of its various measures
of division, interpretation and derision 

I come into the world as I am
child of nature, born of woman, created either
for pleasure or lust,
as needs must we creatures great and small
do our bit for regeneration,
trusting in something as positive passing on
from generation to generation
as will ever see the beauty of integrity’s seasons come,
nature and human nature’s will be done 

I come into the world as I am,
vulnerable to its divisive ways, each supposedly
caring for the likes of me,
but only on terms acceptable to such aspects
of a (common) humanity
as likely to find favour with whatever line of duty
I’ve been groomed for, in the name
of whatever socio-cultural-religious or political education;
in whose best interests, up for speculation 

Open-hearted, open-minded, I’m a species of human spirit
for whom its self-styled “betters” so love to reap credit 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2021