Ken Anderson

The Art of the Samurai: Disciplined Natural Growth Ken Anderson

In a natural state there is never a moment a human being is not growing. There is never a moment when a human being is not learning, whether the individual realizes it or not. Yet, in affluent contemporary American society human beings remain stagnant and unable to evolve. The human experience or what we refer to as "life" has become a pestilence for some and a hell for others. Even given modern technology in the information age, many are spiritually and emotionally illiterate. Binging from the buffet of technological advances and enlightenment does not provide nourishment for the spirit or enable people to think independently. Even in a country with all the amenities one could imagine at their fingertips, many have no idea how to live meaningful and effective lives. In our culture people are treated as commodities and this compels people to view themselves as marketable objects and programmed beings. The human experience is in overdrive; in the chaotic stressful chase for money, power and influence dictated by the corporate marketplace, many people begin to lose their morals and ethical values. The Art of the Samurai invokes the awareness of the creative evolutionary process that is fundamental to the human experience. To invoke such awareness people must think for not just themselves but of the greater good of all humanity. These poems present the poets recognition that the fundamental conflict is the enmity between the forces of good and evil, between justice and injustice, and between the human and inhumane.