Writing Challenge Tuesday: The Centre Cannot Hold

It’s time for another writing challenge Tuesday. I was pondering what to write for a challenge, and reading through some old poetry quotes. Mind you, I’m not exactly a poetry connoisseur. I know the classics in brief because of old courses in college. Frost, Yeats, Dickenson, Angelou - I’m not exactly super well read in poetry, but I can identify famous poets. Sometimes I can even remember what I read from their work…

In Yeats work, I’ve always loved The Second Coming. I’m not really one for religious revelations or ends of days, but the line, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” has always appealed to me. I think because it’s true. Sooner or later any system will break down into chaos, and then need some rebuilding to make a better system.

Personally, I think that’s fantastic. I know personally I’d prefer revolution to stagnation. Given where I’m living right now and the amount of gentrification in my city driving wedges between the haves and the have nots, I do my share of wishing there could be a change. 

I can’t change my city, and no one person can uproot a corrupt or broken system on a whim. But in your writing, you can. That’s my challenge today. Look in your writing for systems that need fixing; broken systems with unfair or useless demands on the people. Imagine how it could break down. What’s the final straw? Who is the lynchpin that moves it from a problem into a true revolution?

We’re hitting that tipping point in real life. Maybe for all of us (or just for me) understanding how the chaos gets loosed on the world will help me see what we need to do in order to make this world better. Here’s hoping.