Elders are shocked.
Preachers fall out of their pulpits.
Mothers stop their children's ears.
But it's true and I'll say it:
I am head-over-heels in love with myself,
starry-eyed crazy about Me, my own Self.
Pouring rapturous praises over myself,
I crown myself with laurels,
pin on rows of medals,
grin and strut and crow
until Shame itself is scandalized.
Vanity and conceit have nothing to do with this,
and not arrogance or righteousness.
Those are the masks of Shame.
The "proud" man, the "vain" woman,
the smug, the selfish, the egotistical and stuck-up,
all the "better-than,"
the know-it-alls and judges and busybodies,
inside they squirm with unworthiness worms
and have no love for themselves.
Self-love is good humored and easygoing.
A self-loved body tingles with pleasure
like a sun-warmed beach
when waves of love wash over.
A self-loved mind is at peace,
does not turn against itself in criticism,
does not strive to make up for itself with a good show,
has no fear, no anger, no greed,
no hurry, no worry,
just glides along like a white cloud
doing one thing at a time
as though it were serious.
Self-love is the spring, the source
of all the rivers of love that flow.
It is the hive for all the honey,
the store for all the presents.
It is a home of God.
It is not "attention-getting."
It is not at anyone's expense.
It is free for all.
It is everyone's birthright.
Unconditional,
it cannot be earned or achieved,
it's not because of anything,
it's just there, like space,
and it moves through the body
like a river of light.
Self-love is not different from humility.
Humility means going easy on myself
about achievements and image,
the puffed-up masks and costumes,
the dramas to stage myself
and be seen as the star of the show.
Humility means giving myself a rest
from the rush against time,
the endless, busy river
of explanations and justifications
and compensations and rationalizations
and stupefying lists of projects
for self-improvement and doing good,
none of them ever enough,
never enough, never enough,
hurry along, there's more to do,
more to do, more to do.
Self-love has enough already,
delights to give itself away
like an ice cream machine overflowing.
Self-love "versus" love-of-others
is a treachery to the heart.
Love radiates.
Without self-love,
what is there to radiate?
How many grim relationships we endure
to try to get the love we fail to give ourselves,
sucking at a dry breast
when the milk is flowing in our own hearts.
Why should we have to wait for a lover to fall in love?
So here it is! your full pardon from the Governor.
It reads:
"My life might need some work,
but I myself, the worker on my life,
am forever immaculately perfect."
Frame it. Hang it in your mind.
Never surrender your Freedom
from the dismal prison of Shame.
* * * *
Now the economists are alarmed.
If this should spread, they wonder,
who would buy what and why?
Whole industries gasp
at the specter of a less needy nation.
The cosmetic and fashion industries faint.
Mad. Avenue unleashes
barrages of TV commercials
with beautiful unloved models
fretting about odors and hairs
and other people's possible opinions,
to keep us all shamed and needy and buying:
buying shiny new machines
and sex and beer and remission of sins.
But people turn off the TVs,
grow gardens and sing love songs,
admire simplicity and cultivate love.
Holy hookahs! The money we'll save on drugs
when we sip at the spring of natural ecstasy.
The Drug Enforcement Agency
will look like the Maytag repairman.
Pastors brighten their sermons
since no one will ever submit
to another harangue.
Newspeople enter News Anonymous
to recover from adrenaline addiction.
Lawyers, to keep busy,
are reduced to suing each other.
Divorce courts are made into museums
as people no longer marry to "find" love
but to celebrate it in each other.
And this is the way the world will heal:
not by making people "good,"
but by letting us fall in love.
* * * *
Old renegade that I am,
I will not stop at blasphemy.
I commit sacrilege
before the high altar of Shame
and proclaim the shocking sin
of my own magnificent wonderfulness.
If I ever die, it will be from
loving myself to death.
I would like a lot more company here.
Come, let us luxuriate,
let us slow down and rejoice in ourselves,
let us bathe ourselves in praise,
lavishly, extravagantly,
adoring and shameless,
until Shame itself suffers a fatal embarrassment,
blushes such a furious fiery-red blush,
it's consumed in its own flame
and self-cremates.
We keep the ashes for a souvenir.
Final score:
Self-love 100 Shame 0
And this is a victory poem, celebration and call.
We've passed the final final exam,
school is out and it's all vacation.
Strike up the band! Throw away the drugs!
Our team won and it's Love for us forever.
Parade up and down every street and hall.
We have it all! We have it all!
