Death and Sleep are timeless portals for the music of nature's choir; The lost art of dreaming, our connection to the source of creation. Without sleep, we sink in desperate selfishness and isolation; Without death, our souls are stalled, suspended, and can climb no higher. Less doing, more listening--in the end we know it comes to this.

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We know right away if someone's inspired or merely devout--
Nor Moonies nor Marxists nor Tupperware salesmen can fool us.
But within, institutional din, social message has power to rule us,
And God's whisper is drowned by the roar of their collective shout.

All wisdom and all certainty depend on this foundation
Inner light is not a luxury for rare, inspired moments--
Sanity itself is Phoenix, rising from turmoil it foments,
This collective, primal sanity may prove mankind's salvation.

Death and Sleep are timeless portals for the music of nature's choir;
The lost art of dreaming, our connection to the source of creation.
Without sleep, we sink in desperate selfishness and isolation;
Without death, our souls are stalled, suspended, and can climb no higher.

Less doing, more listening--in the end we know it comes to this.
Patiently pursued, it is the only path I know to bliss.

-- Josh Mitteldorf

Authors Bio:

Josh Mitteldorf, de-platformed senior editor at OpEdNews, blogs on aging at http://JoshMitteldorf.ScienceBlog.com. Read how to stay young at http://AgingAdvice.org.

Educated to be an astrophysicist, he has branched out from there to mathematical modeling in a variety of areas, including evolutionary ecology and economics. He has taught mathematics, statistics, and physics at several universities. He is an avid amateur pianist, and father of two adopted Chinese girls, now grown. He travels to Beijing each year to work with a lab studying the biology of aging. His book on the subject is "Cracking the Aging Code", http://tinyurl.com/y7yovp87.