SONG OF RENEWAL

Once you burst the bubble,
Spare yourself the trouble;
Nothing that you do
can ever bring it back again.

The bubble had its season,
The bursting had its reason;
Their veracity’s value
Is not diminished by your pain.

The past looks real but isn’t,
The gift is in the present;
It makes you transform You -
The only goal you can truly attain.

Metamorphosis is life’s pleasure,
It’s a treasure beyond measure;
It makes you constantly renew
Your focus on your spiritual lane.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

DON’T SURRENDER IT ALL TO AI

The primary aim of artistic expression is inner clarification of self, as well as personal spiritual development. The secondary aim is communication and sharing of ideas, which in any case always happens automatically as a by-product.

If you outsource all your artistic creativity to Artificial Intelligence, then, yes, finished works of a certain mould will be generated, but your spirit will not grow. And the purpose of your earthlife – the very purpose of life itself – will not be fulfilled. This lies alone in the continuous development of your “I” through self-exertion, self-clarification and the constant effort towards pure and accurate self-expression of intuition via thought into word and deed.

AI will produce works that resemble beauty, but will lead to the atrophy and death of the human spirit – unless you critically interrogate those works and then correct, reject or surmount them with your own personal effort, your own intuiting and reasoning. Don’t surrender to AI. Learn it but remain above it. Artificial Intelligence will make you look good, make you feel good, but only you can become better by yourself, by your own effort. The ancient rule is still the same, there is no short cut to success.

It is very imperative, in this era of artificial intelligence, for each person to remain personally creative, as well as spiritually and intellectually active and independent. Make the effort to think your own thoughts through to the end, and formulate and write them down by yourself. Compose, rehearse and record your own music. Make your own art. Draw the inspiration not just from others, but also, like before, from within the fathomless depths of your immortal spirit. Spend time in the silence of your heart, listening to your inner voice, hearing yourself by yourself and not from the programmed algorithm of an AI companion’s voice.

And also continue to do as many things with your hands as possible. Build. Make. Write. Go out into the world. Use your physical muscles, use your brain muscles, use your heart muscles, use your soul and use your spirit. And also, PATRONISE THOSE WHO DO SO, THOSE WHO STILL PRODUCE BY THE EFFORT OF HUMAN CREATIVITY. When you do this, you are not doing them a favour, but you are doing yourself and humanity and our future a SERVICE!

This is the only way they will grow. This is the only way we will grow. This is how we survived as a species over millions of years. This is how we got here. By the agency of Natural personal Human Intelligence. WE have always been the ones evolving, the ones plumbing our own depths, the ones developing. Thus: Woe betide us today if we now, tempted by convenience, hand that task now over to a self-programming and self-learning artificial algorithm we fashioned. Like the Zauberlehrling who can no longer deactivate or control the witchcraft he awakened. We would thereby have marked the beginning of the end of the story of the human spirit on Earth.

We are the generation that must tame the beast we have created, and ensure that it remains a servant and never becomes the cold lifeless master of our destiny, literally and figuratively. AI is wonderful for sourcing and collating information, and sorting and delivering it coherently. It is also marvellous at generating alternative versions of expressive output. But it cannot see the light. It cannot produce that individual unique recognition that can only come from deep within you. And it cannot produce the NEW, a truly new and different future. It can only regurgitate and re-permutate the past.

The production of Newness is still the purview and the task of the living and active human spirit. Let AI not be our last invention. Let us continue to bestir ourselves to intuit, imagine, innovate and invent even greater creations in the future, greater and higher than AI, and which also come from us – or through us. For WE are human spirit.

Retain your primary art-form in your hands. Don’t outsource it in the name of comfort, or vanity, or convenience, or competition, or materialism. Save and continue to develop that which is most valuable to us – our spirit. Let art, intuition and inspired thinking continue to be tools for personal inner growth through the joy of effort.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

SLOWNESS AND SPEED

Many times tomorrow comes today
If you finish today’s task early;
Many times yesterday returns today
If you finished it prematurely;
They rhyme and seen to be the same thing
But will each result in a different ending.

It’s a fine line between slowness and speed;
Knowing the difference between need and greed;
To capture and move like eyes when they read;
Quickness must follow, Thoroughness must lead;
The path from intuition, through thought, to deed;
Only through fulfilment can you be freed.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

SPEAK YOUR MIND

You need to speak your mind
Or you will not be free
It will eat you up inside and grind
Away at your sanity.

Say what you really believe
Articulate what you really want
Your Inner piece shall grant you reprieve
When people’s reaction be blunt.

Truth is better than art
Honesty shines brighter than beauty
Your inner voice wants to chart
A path to peace of mind and to Liberty.

Speak your mind before you die.
If your heart moves your mind spiritually
Speak your mind unless you’ll die
Literally and figuratively.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

THE JOURNEY OF YOUR “I”

The miracle of life transcends the earth.
The adventures of the “I”
Survive many an earthly death and rebirth
And a “Beyond” not in the Sky
But right here beside you
And much too often beneath you.
Your Journey is shaping the Real you.

This is really the purpose of it all -
Not the Earthly but the Spiritual,
the true inner personality,
you the actual person, you, you, you!
Eternity requires integrity,
and self-conquest is our path thereto
in the struggle with the Material.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

FULFILMENT: THE CYCLE OF OPTIONS

What you can’t do, say.
What you can’t say, write.

What you can’t write, say.
What you can’t say, do.

What you can’t do, make.
Or make happen. Or just say.

What you can’t say, write.
What you can’t write,…

JUST FIND A WAY.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

THE WAY OF GOODNESS

The fact that a thing goes the way it goes
Doesn’t mean it was meant to go that way
But in the end, however way it goes,
If you follow goodness, it will go your way.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

WRONG IS SOMETIMES RIGHT

The right one will come
When your education is done.
Until then every wrong one
Is the right one so you can become
The right one
When your transformation
Is done.

Wrong is sometimes right
Because it’s what you need right now
Some people’s day is the night
That’s when they can work and plough
Blindness strengthens inner sight
You intuit your way through things somehow
And a bark is just as useful as a bite.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

MOVE!

Move! You have to move!
Always you have to move move move!
Change change change! Move
And move again and again
Keep moving keep changing your lane
Joy and pain sunshine and rain playing and praying
And always adjusting and recalibrating
And moving and moving and moving
And constantly growing and improving.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

OPPORTUNITY

Good Morning Opportunity,
In what ever form or person you cross my path today
May I have the strength and clarity
To recognise, appreciate, take, keep and use you, I pray.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river