Matterings Poem by Lonnie Hicks

'All I want' she said' is to matter.'

'All I want' said the scientist 'is
to understand matter'.

'The problem of life' the philosopher said
'is figuring out what matters'

'The secret' the muse said 'to life
is figuring out what is to matter more
and to learn what matters less

The Lover said
'All that matters to me
is matters of the heart
and I did not matter to him enough.'

'What does it mean to matter
is an world of billions;
what tracings and scratchings
on the globe
can be identified
as mine engraved? ' said the nihilist.

'What if I matter to me and no one else? '
said the Lonely One

'We could all decide that we all matter
to one another in our community
and that would make mattering matter.'
said the preacher.

'Ideas matter' Plato said
'and they are the only thing real.'

'But alas' the writer said
'imagining is the only matter that matters
and besides what does mattering mean? '

Einstein thought all that mattered lived inside
the daydream and the thought experiment.

'What matters' the man of action said
'depends entirely upon circumstance'

What matters' she said 'is empathy
more even than love because the latter
is only inward looking toward The One:
empathy alone looks out to others.

'What matters, ' some said, 'is how do we
gets things to matter as opposed to
being cast aside as not mattering? '


The dictionary is no help at all.



Definitions of matter on the Web:

a vaguely specified concern; 'several matters to attend to'; 'it is none of your affair'; 'things are going well'

topic: some situation or event that is thought about; 'he kept drifting off the topic'; 'he had been thinking about the subject for several years'; 'it is a matter for the police'

that which has mass and occupies space; 'physicists study both the nature of matter and the forces which govern it'

a problem; 'is anything the matter? '

(used with negation) having consequence; 'they were friends and it was no matter who won the games'

count: have weight; have import, carry weight; 'It does not matter much'
written works (especially in books or magazines): 'he always took some reading matter with him on the plane'
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Matter is a general term for the 'stuff' of which the world is made
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter

Matter is the substrate from which physical existence is derived, remaining more or less constant amid changes. anything that occupies space and has mass and weight. The word 'matter' is derived from the Latin word mā teria, meaning 'wood' in the sense 'material', as distinct from 'mind' or 'form'.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_(philosophy)


This a surprising definition:

Matter is anything that has mass. Air, water, coffee, fire, human beings, and stars are matter. Light, X-rays, photons, gravitons, information, and love aren't matter.
antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/intro/glossary.shtml

If all of these definitions are true then we have a problem with what matters and what is mattering.