Pansies (Lawrence)/The Combative Spirit
THE COMBATIVE SPIRIT
As a matter of fact, we are better than we know.We trail behind us an endless tradition, of combat, triumph, conquestand we feel we've got to keep it up, keep on combating, triumphing, conquering.When as a matter of fact, the thought of this endless, imbecile struggle of combatkills us, we are sick of it to die.We are fed up with combat, we feel that if the whole combative, competitive system doesn't soon go bust,we shall.We want a new world of wild peace, where living is free.
Not this hyena tame peace where no man dare tell another he's a thiefand yet every man is driven into robbing every other man;this pretty peace where every man has to fight, and fight foulto get a living, in the dastardly mean combatwe call free competition and individual enterprise and equal opportunity.
Why should we have to fight for a living?Living should be as free to a man as to a bird,though most birds have to pay, with their lives, where men are.
Why should we brace ourselves up with mean emulation?If we brace ourselves up, it should be for something we want to do and we feel is worth doing.The efforts of men, like the efforts of birds in springwould be lovely if they rose from the man himself, spontaneouspure impulse to make something, to put something forth.Even if it was only a tin pan.I see the tin-man, the tinker, sitting day after day on the beachmending and tinning the pans of all the villageand happy as a wagtail by a pool,the same with the fishermen sitting darning their nets,happy as perhaps kings used to be, but certainly aren't.Work is the clue to a man's life.But it must be free work, not done just for money, but for fun.
Why should we compete with one another?As a matter of fact, when the tinker looks so happy tinkeringI immediately want to go and do something jolly too.One free, cheerful activity stimulates another.Men are not really mean.Men are made mean, by fear, and a system of grab.
The young know these things quite well.Why don't they prepare to act on them?Then they'd be happy. For we are all so much betterthan the system allows us to be.