Where Do People Draw the Line in Hurting Others in Pursuit of Their Own Happiness

[question asked by Christina Hall]

What the drugs do,
what fear of a break-up
leads us to & back—
no matter suits we wear,
what textbook recitations tell us,
we are wild, not far from ape-ness,
fish nature, single-celled self-
desire to halve & run from that.
Higher mind makes us more
aware of baser pulls,
not just the act but want:
perfumed scents of ambition
replacing urine on a tree.
What stops us is sadness
of the other. Call it guilt,
evolution’s flaw
mocking from classrooms
where withered professors
explain the word ‘alone.’

Header photograph © Jason D. Ramsey.