Virtue Fatigue

When you get tired enough of virtue and its misguided constraints,

the goodness that rides each molecule in the body pulsates, and sees its friends in all the other molecules and everyone burns more bright.

When you get tired enough of virtue and its ego building mandate,

give it up and breathe. Put down your striving. Put it down somewhere outside the house. (You can pick it back up later.)

When you get tired enough of virtue’s gun to your trying hard head,  when you’re really serious about this,  and you’ve had it, and you’ve put the thing down,  outside the house, way over by the fence —

the interior channels open, and never before have your lungs felt so robust, clear, flexible, alive.  Along the 82,000 nadis, the railways of the mind, the interstates of the soul, there is cargo being picked up and delivered,  crates of laughter up to the brain, pipelines of forgiveness down to the heart, shipments of good-natured mischief bumping along leisure-ridden arm-roads to the hand-terminals.

Gift-wrapped boxes of afternoon naps scented with fresh-mown summer grass,  a Pat Metheny lullaby slides into the ear canal, tender and wild with quiet,  as you lift off the lid.

When you get tired enough of virtue, It’s a sign that you’re ready to stop holding your best self hostage.

Let it go and nobody dies.