The Consumerist Conformist Materialistic Paradigm

I've been trapped.
Trapped, I say, and it's a crime,
By the Consumerist Conformist Materialistic Paradigm.
All my life I have been there,
In a kind of metaphorical electric chair.
Snatched by a force that didn't seem to care.
As far as I know
It all started slow.
I, a mewling infant, was unaware,
Emerging from Mama's hospital underwear,
Under the gaze of Papa's vital expectant stare.
I was an I
And not a me,
Lacquered and varnished
By society.
Preacher, teacher, vagrant, saint
Friend, foe, scallywag all tried to paint
My virgin soul with a vaguely sycophantic taint.
Everyone's opinions became mine.
Prevailing thoughts, ideas and concepts
From near and distant times.
The evolution of the entire gang
Rang and reverberated
In something known as me.
But I wasn't free.
No authenticity.
The paradigm, as the children say, really sucked.
A constructed mental construct barely together stuck,
Built on a foundation of religion and tradition
With a healthy dose of terrifying superstition.
Not an ounce of reality could I find
In the Consumerist Conformist Materialistic Paradigm.
I will never, never ever, claim it as mine.
(Pregnant, reflective pause. Sela)
But then who might I be?
Where is the sinew?
Where is the refinement
And not the witches' brew?
Is it light or abyss
That appears like Gorillas in the mist?
The only harvest that I have learned to sow
Appears only when I be still and know.
There is, however, something more
Than a bunch of DNA from Baltimore.
I won't say Truth.
The notion is far too haughty.
But something like it pulses me.
A pulsar like something Almighty.
My accumulation of Atoms, Quarks and Strings
Vibrating, pulsating, a truly living thing
Is more than the sum of its infinitesimal parts.
I am I, something greater,
A thing with a heart.