When you ask me Why I make all this rhyme The answer is What else should I be doing with my time But exactly this Nothing else is worth it The pain covers the bliss The heart yearns to unearth it What you will one day miss Your aching heart wants to birth it Every day Every blessed day Every single day. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Of Work
MY PATH
I‘m just on my lonely path But very few people know And even those that know Still don’t really know Because how can you know What I don’t truly show? The nature of my sorrow The depth of my flow For I still have many miles to go In my search for tomorrow And only I truly know The loneliness of my path. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
BE WHO YOU ARE
It does not matter who your father is,
Or was. It only matters who you are;
Throw off the reputational burden of his
Life, whether a nobody, a crook or a star.
It does not matter who your mother is,
Was, or will be. You have your own destiny.
Be firm in rejecting her spirit’s liabilities,
Nor bask in her glory. Write your own story.
Never ever allow family to be your bondage.
If wealth is not health, detach and go higher.
The chains of name, blood, and heritage
Are human assumptions, not God’s desire.
God wants each unique creature to be true,
So experience and enrich the world as You.
Free your children too from the Obligation to
Follow, serve, help, complete or redeem you.
If your story happens to be your family’s too,
Then so be it, that’s who you genuinely are.
But if your story is totally different and new,
Don’t feel guilty; accept and be who you are.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
WORK CYCLE
Value from work Dignity from value Peace of mind from dignity Peace in the world from peace of mind Cooperation from peace in the world Ideas from cooperation Work from ideas Value from work. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
BE RIGHT DO RIGHT
It‘s character that gets to heaven, not knowledge. Knowledge might know the way there even, but only character can attain the height of being, by doing, not just by knowing. Be right, do right, lets there be light. 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
GOLD’S LOW STANDARDS
Who decided that gold is the standard? Why do we think it is so valuable? A shiny metal. Can we eat it? Yet we bombard Humankind with unkind mined metal unable To nourish spirit or body or soul or even mind - But greed needs a rampart for greed is blind And money is the mockery of the honest grind. Silver and gold have brought sorrow untold To the timid and the bold, the young and the old, Warm-blooded and cold-hearted who all departed Without a dust of gold from the path they started Upon, seeking value in materialism’s charms And losing their value in materialism’s arms’ Creeping stranglehold that grins and harms. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
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
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
INNER SPIRIT
It‘s not the outer age, It‘s the inner Spirit and Sage That determines superiority. It’s neither youth nor ignorance But lack of humility That determines inferiority. We are not of sand and dust We are spirit and immortal ghost Marching towards eternity. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 