Hobbes: Squaring the Circle Or Circling the Square?

I was reading Thomas Hobbes the 17th century philosopher who wrote The Leviathan amongst many works. I found out tonight that he coined the term Squaring the Circle. Soon as I read it I realised I had written it in a poem. I was very curious what he meant by it. Apparently to square a circle with the same area is considered impossible. Sounds like Escher’s work or the way we think about the future. Tonight I was thinking of justice and truth sometimes it seems impossible, but maybe it is possible to square the circle through truth itself. When I first wrote the poem I called it circling the square but changed it. I think when the impossible becomes possible that is what is seen. It is to take off the hard edges, the rigidities of thinking I feel. Sometimes when you speak truth you don’t feel heard, you are met with silence. Somehow you have to trust that you are not alone in this aspiration.

I’ve just had an inspiration to return to the original title, circling the square.  This was reinforced by a conflict I experienced and wrote again in poetry the circling of the square as the true freedom.

CIRCLING THE SQUARE

There is no security in fear,
There is no control in force,
There is no punishment in stone walls,
For openness opens doors to awareness,
And empathy walks in the shoes of another,
For no person can ever deliver to meet your expectations,
Although to enjoy the sensations of life,
Is to accept the breeze as it blows,
And learn to flow with the moment,
For no two moments are the same,
And each is a gift in the game of life.

Is there a price to freedom?
Is there a defence in security?
Or is illusion the indefensible?
For nothing is funny when serious,
There are no jokes in suspicious eyes,
For when one sees the enemy in the eyes of the other,
This can only be seeing yourself in the mirror of conflicted feelings,
For how can one fight for the future,
As the gateway to opportunity,
In a losing battle.

The freshness of freedom of democracy,
Has no walls to truth,
No pillars form foundations,
For true strength is unseen,
Only the open space initiative,
Is the vista of mountains with range,
For statues no longer speak of status,
They are metaphoric reminders of values,
As humility and virtue is the status of liberty that is the hub but not the wheel,
Built on the notion of unity within diversity,
At the heart of true freedom is no ladder,
And freedom of speech is all languages,
The rights of individuals are the rights of all,
For surrender is acceptance of difference as uniqueness,
And the white flag is where all colours blend into oneness,
Flying high symbols of sacred geometry,
Envisaging a new world harmony,
Replacing the new world order,
as truth in reality.

WWII, Korea and Macarthur,
Embodied the fire of volatility,
The domination of minions,
Falls from heaven to find hell in resistance,
The 38th parallel crosses lines of control,
As assault cuts front lines as troops advance,
Success sees re-claiming foreign ground,
The common ground of war and politics,
Was never in separated states,
And this retains the dark fortress of false freedoms,
Totalitarian crushing defeat beckons no opposition as one dictates the terms,
Weeding out enemies from the forest floor,
As napalm defoliates those hiding under cover,
Yet the blood of my brother and sister is the same as mine,
As rivers of wine no longer intoxicate but drown our sorrows,
Of collective inhumanity of treason,
As the V in victory sinks reason as his story is the beginning of the end game.

Missing in action a thousand yard stare,
Reliving horrors in a sea of rigid corpses,
As an eye for an eye makes his world blind,
A Third World War looms larger than life,
Man’s confusion of dominance as freedom,
As the war hero’s immoral authority over shadows the humility of brotherly love.

If you want peace be peace
If you want freedom give it away,
If you want clarity speak truth,
If you seek unity then overcome divisions,
For blockades, checkpoints, exclusion and walls cannot divide and conquer the circle,
They simply lock your beliefs in the square,
For you become the prisoner of geometry,
That is not sacred but scared,
For fear was always false evidence appearing real,
War is the futility that knows not truth,
A solo bugle wails ‘lest we forget’ in vain,
That evil is in the eye of armed beholders,
The conscientious objector knows the climate has changed,
For there is no price as freedom is free,
To see the strings of the puppet move you,
When you square the circle,
Yet circling the square is a new beginning.