This Little Earthly Show Author:Davida (Pete) Gates Most of what is REAL in life is not inspirational, profoud, or joyful. Much is ridiculous, unhappy, trivial, sad, painful. Right and wrong are generally impossible to evaluate with certainty. The happiest persons are those who live in the shelter of ignorance and/or unquestioning dogmatism. The deepest questions are probably unanswerable, but t... more »houghtful persons keep trying. Years ago I developed a deliberate philosophy that I would never be a slave to comfort. The result has been not only that I hike in rain or cold with hurting feet, for the sake of challenge and for the love of Nature and the companionship of very real people. The ESSENCE of this philosophy is that I have tried never to allow myself to seek out mental, psychological or emotional comforts at the expense of honesty or commonsense. I have tried not to ignore what my eyes and whatever intelligence I have to tell me is THERE just because I wish it weren't, or because someone else seeks more comfort. If you are a slave to comfort, if you do not want to think about some of the raw edges of reality, to confront questions of life and faith, to look squarely at paradoxes, you will not like much of my poetry. On the other hand, not ALL reality is bitter and sad. There are some beauties in Nature, in human nature, in love. And there is alot that is funny in both the pretty and the ugly. There is profundity in simplicity. If I have succeeded in my purpose, and if you read me carefully, you will find some things, some thoughts, that are beautiful, tender, funny, with maybe an accidental flash of simple profundity here and there, along with the principal themes, which are probably more cynical than anything else. I hope you will enjoy the discomforts along with me.« less