Clutching at Tradition

CLUTCHING AT TRADITION
(INSTRUCTION SONG #7)

Clutching at tradition is like
Leaning on a crutch,
Even when you can
Walk by yourself

Walking unsteadily alone
Is always more fulfilling
Than leaning on whatever
For support

What we lean onto for comfort
Will develop into the first prison bar,
The nucleus of our self-constructed prison,
If support is maintained too long

That spark of creativity, the courage
To satisfy your curiosity
Whichever impetuous guise it may adopt,
Is the beginning of all possibilities,
And the start of the usurpation
Of the individual prison
Of perception each of us maintains

Whenever you poke your head
Out of your snail’s house
To take some hesitant breaths
In regions you normally never tread,
You are risking being corrupted by the new,
You are risking the loss of the grip
On your view of the world

Now, are you going to say “Wow!
Infuse me with all this new stuff!” – even
If it means throwing your old values overboard?

Or will you withdraw
Into your snail’s house,
Into your brittle eggshell-mind
That you have nourished with
Your inconsequence till now?

These are the daily decisions
You must learn to make,
And to make gladly.

2001
from Instruction Songs

© George H.E. Koehler, 2010