[since feeling is first] by ee cummings

since feeling is first

who pays any attention 

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,

and kisses are a better fate 

than wisdom

lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry

—the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

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I often present things and claim they're the greatest things ever made and that is because I only present you things are that are the greatest ever and [since feeling is first] by ee cummings is quite possibly the greatest poem ever written

Werner Herzog had the quote about "facts do not convey truth." And, "there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth."

That's what ee cummings is talking about when he says, "wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world" and "the best gesture of my brain is less than your eyelids' flutter"

So you read stuff like this and the message is "put ecstatic truth at the center of your life" or "feeling is first" and the argument that would naturally arise is, 'well that's not actually practical'. Or, if we didn't have any rules and people just did what they felt like that would be chaotic and scary and wild.

I think Werner Herzog and ee cummings would disagree. I think they would argue that actually the main purpose of rules and etiquette and norms is to justify treating others as less than human. That if you really got to the essence of the thing there wouldn't be a need to mistreat others or see people as different and removed from yourself. Werner Herzog says, "I despise formal restaurants. I find all of that formality very base and vile. I would much rather eat potato chips on the sidewalk." He's saying that if you place a lot of importance on decorum and rules then you allow yourself to treat anyone who doesn't follow all those rules as unworthy and lesser. Oh, they didn't unbutton their jacket when they sat down--they're a simpleton and they're swine. But if you're eating chips on the sidewalk with someone you have to see others as equals. 

At the very least, if you're going to be skeptical of a utopian world based on love without any laws or norms, you should also be on alert for the ways those same laws and norms that allegedly keep things safe and fair are allowed to debase large swaths of people. That's all I'm saying.