Musical Chairs
Musical Chairs
...like an endless merry-go-round.
The game musical chairs
still fills me with anxiety,
just as it did forty years ago
when I first learned to play.
There's always one less chair
than there are people playing.
Round and round everyone goes
until the music stops suddenly,
leaving that chairless-person
dejected, standing alone.
Today it seems as though
I'm still playing this game,
clawing and fighting through life,
so that I won't be the one
left without a seat.
Will this game ever end?
Must the music go on forever?
Or must I find the courage within
to walk away and face my fears?
The whole aim of practical politics
is to keep the populace alarmed
(and hence clamorous to be led to safety)
by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins,
all of them imaginary.
~ H. L. Mencken
