A Well Read Fool

This little piece was inspired by people I have come across at different times, who are not related to one another, they come from different walks of life but are strangely similar in their pattern of behaviour. Pulled it out of the archives :)

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A Well Read Fool

I sit with a book in hand

I read to know, I read to impress

I read to opine, I read to control

And people call me 'well-read'

There is not a fact I do not know

There is no discourse I cannot deliver

There is not a debate I cannot win

There is no opinion I cannot crush

But am I really well-read?

I see not the beauty of a painting 

unless to find a crooked line

I miss the forest for the tree

and find fault in everything but 'me'

I read to equip my vocabulary

but infinite knowledge fails to impress me

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Blessed is the person who lives every breath

Finds magic in the sun, the wind and the sky

Who reads to understand how little he knows

And is just simply marvelled by life

What it is to live a life of adventure and exploration

of the mind and the soul

Express to lift up and not bog down

and walk along instead of alone

Unless I realize that the magic of freedom is to let go

of my 'self' and the so-called 'control'

I will live by my set rules

and will remain a well-read fool

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