This is a wonderful poem by Charles Bukowski. It's about remaining fluid, creative, independent and present in life.
I'll give you my thoughts below the poem, but first I'll let you read through and establish your own without my influence.
No Leaders Please
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
don’t swim in the same slough.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself
and
stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
change your tone and shape so often that they can
never
categorize you.
reinvigorate yourself and
accept what is
but only on the terms that you have invented
and reinvented.
be self-taught.
and reinvent your life because you must;
it is your life and
its history
and the present
belong only to
you.
Charles Bukowski
Why I Love This Poem
‘No Leaders Please' is a powerful reminder to remain a free spirit, to break free of conformity, to never let people put you in a box and stick a label on it that says “this is who you are and what you are like”.
Even if that label is flattering, we should remain aware that it can become defining and ultimately restrictive. It can make us stagnate and allow our lives to be defined by the opinions of others, and by the past.
It is a reminder to retain our independence and live life on our terms. Bukowski warns us of remaining static and swimming “in the same slough”, which inevitably leads to the “clutches of mediocrity”, as he puts it.
Although the poem doesn't mention leaders, the title does, and the content suggests a rejection of leadership, particularly the line “be self-taught”.
Throughout our lives we are continually presented with leaders in different guises, many of whom have an agenda such as pride or money; many of whom do not have our best interests at heart and seek only to further their goals.
Allowing such people to lead you and dictate your life can result in living life on terms other than your own. If you “change your tone and shape so often…they can never categorize you”.
So yes it's important to listen and learn, but even more important to continue upon a journey of self-learning and keep advancing our knowledge: to question everything, particularly our own thoughts and opinions and not just those of others.
One slightly ambiguous part is the last three words of the following line; “reinvent your life because you must“. To me this suggests that to not do so would be to risk your freedom; your happiness; the point of life, perhaps.
The poem is a powerful reminder to retain that child-like creativity that enables us to reinvent ourselves and find new passion in life: new interests, new hobbies, new learnings.
This “is your life” and you must write your own story.
Because “its history and the present belong only to you”.
Of course, this is just a brief summary of my interpretation. Poetry can mean different things to different people; that's the beauty of it.
This poem was taken from the book The Pleasures of the Damned – selected poems 1951 to 1993 – by Charles Bukowski.
> Click here to buy this book and other Bukowski poetry
Marcel Desranleau says
Thank you for that important reminder to continue learning and evolving with ourselves.
Alfred James says
No worries. It’s a powerful poem.
Mark says
Mmmm. Sounds a little exhausting. Relentless reinvention. I’m trying to be better at being still (mind and body). But guess for me that is reinvention ,after relentlessly ‘pleasing’ for so long. For what? An endless search for something that is within (not outside myself). Peace. Being settled. Feeling connected to the here and now and not focusing on something other, absent. What a relief. If I can better at that, a little more each day. That’ll do me 🙂✌🏻
Alfred James says
Bukowski was pretty still; mostly he drank and wrote 🙂 As my friend Jon Kabat-Zinn says: “the being is in the doing”. Of course, whatever you choose to do, is up to you. It need not be relentless, and certainly shouldn’t feel that way, anyway. Have a great day.
Karla Miller says
Awesome 👏 from a 53 year old Wow man
With Pink hair!
Great reminder to be me and it’s ok!
Will definitely pass on!
Smiling,
Karla
ReeAnn Betts says
It was a pleasure reading this poem because it described my life to a ” T “.. I have seen more life than any 25 average people. When I was younger, I thought I might have some gypsy blood with all the reinventing I experienced. I agree with you on the phrase – because you must. It seems to limiting, like you don’t have choice. Life is all about choices we make every day, we every hour, every minute. Many times I have often wondered where I would, what would be doing, how I would different if I had made other choices in my life. And it is exhausting living every moment to the fullest, but I have some wonderful memories that I treasure.
Alfred James says
It sounds like you’ve lived a life worth living, and that’s something to cherish. Those wonderful memories came about because you took the journey, you decided not to conform and let your intuition guide you. I wish you many more wonderful experiences.
Pete Lee says
Buk! My favorite poet.
A MINIMALIST’S GUIDE TO ENLIGHTENMENT
PRESENCE:
Be here now.
Pay attention.
Do one thing at a time.
Do everything in a sacred manner.
Your purpose is to awaken, and to remain awake.
Let present-moment awareness be your spiritual practice.
This moment is the only reality; all else is abstraction, a mental construct.
Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being inwardly still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you.
Attention is primordial intelligence, consciousness itself, the living God. It joins the perceiver and the perceived in a unifying field of awareness.
The present moment is deeper than what happens in it. It is the space in which it happens. Eventually, the focus is on the inner, silent, still presence of awareness itself rather than on its passing content.
You are responsible for reining in your attention, taking command of this power of focused awareness, and purposefully choosing how you will live the moments of your life. You can waste and dissipate them, or you can center yourself intentionally and live fully in the present moment. It all begins with a decision to live in such a way, a decision that you refuse to betray.
SILENCE:
Things are the meaning of things.
In the godhead there is no thought of God.
Stop thinking, and there is nothing you will not understand.
Spiritual awakening is awakening from the dream of thought.
You are here to learn something. Don’t try to figure out what it is.
You are not the voice in your mind, but the one who is aware of that.
Call off the search for self-definition. Being must be felt; it can’t be thought.
The single most vital step towards enlightenment is learning to disidentify from your mind.
Observe all the content of evolving life without making any mental comment, criticism, or judgment.
It is when you are trapped in incessant streams of compulsive thinking that you lose the ability to sense the oneness of all that exists.
The world does not really need your personal opinions about anything at all. Attachment to views is the greatest impediment to the spiritual path.
When the criticalness and discrimination of dualistic perception are set aside, the absolute perfection and beauty of everything stands revealed.
Enlightenment happens when you have become capable of finding the inner being, the meditative quality within, the gap between thoughts, the inner silence and emptiness, so that it becomes a natural quality. You can find the gap whenever you want. You have found the door to God. You have come home.
ACCEPTANCE:
No drama.
No whining.
This, too, will pass.
Merge with the situation.
Enlightenment is the quiet acceptance of what is.
Surrender to the natural course and sequence of things.
Why is there so much suffering in the world? No reason.
Cast aside the mind that says this is good and that is bad.
When you become a lover of things as they are, the war is over.
Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When you don’t struggle against it, you are in harmony with reality.
All you really need to do is accept this moment fully. You are then at ease in the here and now and at ease with yourself.
Weather comes and goes, but the sky remains unchanged. Enlightenment is merely the shift of identity from the cloud to the sky.
The world is neither bad nor defective, nor is it in need of help or modification, because its appearance is only a projection of your own mind. No such world exists.
What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone.
REALIZATION:
God is not a being, but a state of being.
You are awareness, disguised as a person.
You are not in the universe; the universe is in you.
You are here to awaken from your illusion of separateness.
Your state of consciousness is primary; all else is secondary.
“In here” and “out there” are mirror reflections of each other.
Heaven is not a physical location, but a state of consciousness.
All the consciousnesses in your life are your own consciousness.
All the separate activities in the universe are actually one activity.
You are an aperture through which the universe is exploring itself.
Consciousness is continuous and present in everything; it is the one reality.
The eye by means of which God sees you is the same eye by means of which you see God.
There is neither a perceiver nor that which is perceived because they are one and the same.
Nothing in the universe happens by chance or accident. Everything influences everything else and is in perfect balance.
The entire universe was designed for the purpose of creating and expanding a consciousness capable of observing and understanding itself.
The very ground of the enlightened state is the absolute, unequivocal, unshakable confidence in the perennial mystical revelation that IT IS . . . and I AM THAT. It is experienced as a clarity that is empty of content; a weightiness that is full of nothing in particular; a profound knowing that dissolves all questions. You simply know, unequivocally, before thought, that I am. That’s the only answer: I AM. There is no why.
PRACTICE:
Don’t try too hard.
Practice and enlightenment are not two.
Laugh! Even seriousness itself is humorous.
The mundane and the sacred are one and the same.
Generate consciousness through the activities of daily life.
For most of us, enlightenment comes little by little — otherwise it would overwhelm.
Enlightenment is not the end, but the beginning of an unending process in all dimensions of richness.
Your life is your practice. Your spiritual practice does not occur someplace other than in your life right now, and your life is nowhere other than where you are.
The essence of spiritual practice is to activate by inspiration, dedication, and decision of will those aspects of consciousness that become progressively self-actualizing.
Seemingly small steps in spiritual evolution often occur almost unnoticed, but it is the small shifts which occur out of sight below a mountain of snow that result in an avalanche.
Live effortlessly. Enlightenment is not a desire, is not a goal, is not an ambition. It is a dropping of all goals, a dropping of all desires, a dropping of all ambitions. It is just being natural.
Enlightenment is not a destination or graduation into a permanent higher state of consciousness, but a moment-by-moment experience constantly fluctuating between degrees of wholeness and limited consciousness.
A given level of consciousness is not better than another but merely represents the level that is being worked on. It is the basic building blocks that enable a structure to ascend, and it is the dedication that ensures the completion of a cathedral.
Spiritual commitment simply means recontextualizing the meaning of your life. This needs to be done totally, all-inclusively, so that life does not become segmented into spiritual work versus ordinary life. All life now becomes spiritual practice. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.
* * * * *
Published in The Mindful Word, 12/24/2018. Thanks to Alan Watts, Evelyn Underhill, Anita Moorjani, Meister Eckhart, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, and especially Eckhart Tolle and David R. Hawkins.
Tom says
I’m a little late to the party, but I was just reading some philosophy that made me think of this poem.
John Locke believed that a ‘self’ is the collection of thoughts and experiences we are aware of in a given moment and ‘personal identity’ is our present ‘self’ combined with the past ‘selves’ we can remember.
I think this view matches the line “reinvent your life because you must” perfectly because, according to Locke, our identities are constantly changing as we undergo new experiences (and forget old ones); but it is up to us to choose how to “reinvent” ourselves in each new moment.
Gul-e-Zehra says
another nice piece of work by Mr. Alfred James!!