The Ordinary Life Is Not The Good Life Poem by Dennis Ryan

April 21,2006

The ordinary life isn't the good life though some say it is.
It all depends upon your way of life, your point of view,
how you define "the good". The ordinary life isn't "good"
in any sense of the word in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lybia, Syria,
Hondoras, Nicaragua, Guatamala, Bolivia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,
and in parts of India where ordinary people subsist on garbage.
Most Americans are satisfied with this, satisfied to live their
ordinary at the expense of the world's others, the world's poor—
most don't understand how their "ordinary"is circumscribed
by time and space and truth and lie.It would be an ordeal
for them to think otherwise; they would have to step outside,
really step outside, to feel with their eyes.To sympathize—
this isn't the American way.No, Americans play it close to
the vest, keep their supply chains running to accommodate
their rich while funding Christmas coat drives for the poor
to salve their consciences and pat themselves on the back.
No, the ordinary life is not the good life, though some say it is.