Making things more complicated

I have a friend who is a published poet and does alright with poetry. He feels he is successful because he does not have to pay to have his poems published. Yale University publishes his poems and seems very happy to do so. Of course, he does not make enough money to support his cat. Very few poets do. The reason I bring him up here is the comments he makes about my poems and my writings. He does not think too much about them. That's OK for we are still friends anyhow. I don't think too much about his poems. They seem too academic for me.

He has his graduate and doctorate's degrees from Yale University which is probably why they like to publish him. He also gives lectures there at times. He knows all about the technical terms about poems and literature. I used to know them, but I forgot them. I just don't see the importance of remembering them. I can't hear meter so I don't remember the different forms of them. I have dyslexic hearing which my friend does not think exists. That's his opinion. We are not real close. He is always telling me what I am doing wrong in the poems that I have published here and there. He is also a Buddhist and tells me all of the things I get wrong there too.

I am not writing here that it is important not to remember or that one should. I think one should be true to oneself. When I tried to remember all of the definitions, terms and so forth I was so tied up I could hardly write or even talk. I was afraid of talking to another Buddhist. I remember being at a very nice talk at a Buddhist Monastery and one of the monks was chatting away about the definition of a term that I had not heard about before. I listened and then I realized that I just did not care. I was doing just fine where I was so I went for a walk around the grounds and found someone else doing the same. We just sat and watched some cats playing in the sunshine. I went home and made up my mind to be more honest with myself.

Some people need the terms and definitions as anchors which is very good for them. I don't. Some people need to look up their truths in a book. While I love books, I would rather look within. For me, I think one can make something you love a lot more complicated than it needs to be and a whole lot less fun to do. I love to write and enjoy it tremendously. I did learn the rules and try not to break them, but it is like complete sentences. One should never write incomplete sentences but sometimes the work calls for them. If it does, write them. The Grammar Police will not arrest you. As long as you are communicating, that is the most important issue. That does not mean I don't read the rules for I do. I just remember to have some fun too. I pick and choose what I will do in writing. No one else does it for me.