ALTERED AMBITIONS: A Chronicle of Changing Aspirations

	There was a season
	when I craved beauty's bloom,
	but body, bone, and being
	waded through time's relentless loom
	and the mirror made the erosion of my days
	clear through its silvered glass's gaze.
	
	For a while I wandered, wanting gilded gold 
	but became worn and weary until realizing
	aureate things become lifeless and cold.

	Later, with lofty longing,
	I tried to achieve a modicum of wisdom,
	but eventually I recognized  
	foolishness is a part of the human vine.

	Now?

	In quieter moments 
	I desire
	not to desire
	and simply ob
	serve what passes
	breath by breath
	the emptiness of space
	manifests again & again –
	death tucked be-
	tween life bet-
	ween d-
	eath
	
	the hush between each heartbeat,
	each pause before each fall,
	a silence softly saying
	there was never much, after all.


The room remained silent for a beat, the cadence of the poem still vibrating in the room.
Outside, the city’s gray pulse throbbed, but within the stacks, the air felt suspended. Miok
leaned forward, elbows anchoring her to her knees; she stared at the shadowed shelves as if they
were monastery walls. "What’s inherently wrong about desire?" she asked, her voice sharp,
slicing through the digital daze of customers scrolling in the coffee shop.

Chris shifted, the cracked, dry leather of his chair groaning like a tired bone. "Exactly," he
muttered, brow furrowing. "What’s the moral mandate?  Must we renounce everything? Are we tasked
to just... stop thirsting?"

All eyes pivoted to Tim. He sat huddled over a scarred notebook, looking less like an author and
more like a survivor of some old shipwreck. He threw his hands up in a gesture of weary,
washed-out surrender. "How should I know? I merely wrote the poem. That doesn't mean that I
understand it!"

From the corner of the room, Cantara spoke, in a voice that was calm and grounded. "Perhaps we
should remember that not all desires come from the same soil," she suggested. "Some are mere
mindless hankerings, chaotic static in the brain. Others? Others arise from a deeper divine
depth that actually promotes well-being."

Chris added with a cynical, sharp smirk. "Doesn't the problem have a more primitive source? Most
men are governed by two 'brains': one trapped in the skull, and another thrashing between their
legs."

Miok didn't smile; she looked at him with a curious, analytical intensity. "Only two? That seems
dreadfully dim. Don’t we host a chorus of contending voices? I hear hunger rising from my gut,
and wisdom whispering from my throat. My feet speak a language of their own when they strike the
earth."

Cantara nodded, her eyes bright with a inner joy. "Indeed. And why stop at the skin? There is an
intelligence that inhabits the air outside our frames. Have you never stood still enough to
converse with a cedar, or felt the resonant vibration of our planet’s own path?"

Chris let out a dry, jagged laugh, his eyes tracking dust motes dancing toward the ceiling.
"I’ll concede we are compartmentalized, but I refuse this cosmic delusion. We aren't vast; we
are finite. Only our arrogance is infinite."


=====================================================================================
from Heart Scenes: Emotional Landscapes via Art, Poetry, & Prose by T Newfields
Summary:  A journey through desire, folly, and the acceptance of life's cyclical nature.
Keywords: human desires, shifting aspirations, desirelessness, non-hankering, ego-death, 
	ephemeral folly, somatic intelligence, metaphysical cynicism, transient philosophy, mindfulness 

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955 - ?)
Begun: 1994 in Shizuoka, Japan ☆ Finished: 2026 in Shizuoka, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

Disclosure: This piece was partially generated using AI tools for styling and ideation; 
            human editing was then applied.

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TRANSLATIONS

DEUTSCH   https://www.tnewfields.info/de/ehr.htm
ESPAÑOL   https://www.tnewfields.info/es/amb.htm
FRANÇAIS  https://www.tnewfields.info/fr/ambi.htm
NIHONGO   https://www.tnewfields.info/jp/yuganda.htm
ZHŌNGWÉN  https://www.tnewfields.info/zh/baofu.htm