{"id":151,"date":"2021-08-15T17:12:23","date_gmt":"2021-08-15T22:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/?p=151"},"modified":"2021-08-15T17:15:06","modified_gmt":"2021-08-15T22:15:06","slug":"doom-can-be-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/?p=151","title":{"rendered":"Doom Can Be Good"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>So&#8230; if you want to read this &#8220;cold&#8221; and see how it hits you\/try to figure it out, just read the poem below and don&#8217;t read the paragraphs below it. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/poem-DOOM-CAN-BE-GOOD.png?resize=259%2C340\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-152\" width=\"259\" height=\"340\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>So&#8230;<br><br><br><br>I wrote this poem when I was thinking about pride and shame and self-love and self-hate and my life. Specifically, I think what we usually call pride is often technically more related to something more like <em>hubris<\/em>, i.e. arrogance or too high a view of oneself. But I wonder (and have for some time) if that&#8217;s just the head side of the pride coin &#8230; with <em>shame<\/em> being the tails side. I think we tend to see pride as the big daddy of sins, the one that took the devil down, with shame as less toxic than &#8220;pride&#8221; &#8230; but I think shame IS pride, just the back-side of it. (Refusing to accept God&#8217;s opinion of us, whether our counter-opinion over-focuses on our dignity or our depravity, is, at the end of the day, still a deliberate REFUSAL to submit to what GOD says, no matter what we feel or think.) I over the course of my life have excelled in both, with hubris probably being more prominent in my younger years, and shame taking the lead role as I&#8217;ve gotten older. But especially as an Enneagram One, this two-sided coin is my constant companion and nemesis. Hence the poem &#8230; could I just let it go?<br><br>The imagery of this poem is (and hence the title) drawing from Frodo&#8217;s journey to and quest to throw the One Ring into Mount Doom.<br><br>I could say more but that should get you if it wasn&#8217;t very meaningful. People ask me all the time when they find out I write poems if I like this-or-that poet, or they recommend poetry, etc., and I find it a bit funny that not only have I read crazily little poetry, I have a great deal of difficulty even reading poetry. The more poetic the biblical books (say, e.g., Isaiah), the more challenging they&#8217;ve been for me. And while I love song lyrics, the same applies: The more poetic (aka allusive\/obscure\/etc.) they are, the more I&#8217;m like &#8220;?????&#8221; So whenever someone understands or finds my poems meaningful, I&#8217;m honored and impressed and, frankly, humbled. Because I don&#8217;t think I could figure them out\/get much out of them if they weren&#8217;t my own! (Maybe that&#8217;s why God is having me write them haha, it&#8217;s the only way I can really benefit from poetry.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So&#8230; if you want to read this &#8220;cold&#8221; and see how it hits you\/try to figure it out, just read the poem below and don&#8217;t read the paragraphs below it. \ud83d\ude42 So&#8230; I wrote this poem when I was thinking about pride and shame and self-love and self-hate and my life. Specifically, I think what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":155,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions\/155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}