“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
— Walt Whitman on how and why we all should occupy ourselves.
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Contoveros 
Loved reading this! Here’s one you might enjoy based on reading a few of your posts:
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
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Thank you, Meredith. I look forward to seeing you more often.
michael j
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The epitome of freedom, Michael J. No wonder Mr. Whitman was medicinal to those who encountered him.
The challenge to living in that Utopia would be the need to have vast majority living true to the concept.
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It can start with you and me, Amy. Here or in your snow-covered wonderland in Canada. It snows in Utopia, doesn’t it?
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Beautiful post.
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Thanks, but I had nothing to do with it except reproduce it.
It came from Walt Whitman, who got inspired with many of his writings from his years in Washington, D.C., spent as a psychological nurse to sick and wounded soldiers.
According to a published report, Whitman said the following in a letter sent to a friend in 1863: “The doctors tell me I supply the patients with a medicine which all their drugs & bottles & powders are helpless to yield.”
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Whitman was way ahead of his time, in fact, his postulated recipe for a euphoric world will never be reached, given the nature of humanity and their unceasing avorice.
…argue not concerning God…
That would be contrary to logic thinking.
Beechmount
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You may be correct in the final analysis, my good friend, but I like to hope that in seeking the path to a Utopia, all of us can be the Utopia — be the change — we seek.
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