Ecclesiastes in Spirit

Does mental activity count as busyness? If so, I have been swamped with activity. There are three postings sitting, incomplete on my laptop. Each one began as a simple idea and grew into a term paper. Maybe I’ll complete one soon.
I went to Claire De Lunes to catch some poetry on Tuesday. Claire’s is a terminally hip coffee joint that I really need to visit more.
So I’m in a comfy chair, needing to go to the rest room but unwilling to risk losing my spot, when I start wondering about the point of an open mike night. What does the community really receive from an event like this? I stayed for an hour, heard some good poetry, laughed, clapped, became wistful, left. I don’t remember a line of what I heard. Does that make the night meaningless? No.
There is value in the place itself: the juxtaposition of diverse individuals at one time, one place, participating in one experience. A sense of groupness develops, especially if the themes of the night’s rhymes are consistent. The ideas generated and reinforced by such gatherings spread to other venues, following the infected participants. These ideonodes make up an ecosphere of progressive and radical thoughts, seeding weeds into the well trimmed lawn of a conservative system. And remember, a weed is just a flower we haven’t found a use for yet. So attend the silly little art nights and bring your friends. Go to protests. Plant flowers in potholes. Follow Solomon's words in Ecclesiastes 11:9 and live your life fully. So sayeth the Preacher.