If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
A bit of mental exhaustion this morning, feeling like the proverbial frog in the pot realizing that the water is now boiling. A mix of blah and dread. Not a good place to be.
I still wanted to post something even though I didn’t feel like writing or thinking. I do like to adhere to some form of consistency. I need it, actually.
Looking for something about which I could post quickly, I went into a back bedroom here in the studio where I keep some older work and immediately was drawn to the painting at the top, a piece from a few years back called If… after the famed Rudyard Kipling poem.
It’s one of those rare pieces that hold a lot of meaning for me that never found homes for ne reason or another. I guess it just never was in the right place at the right time. But it’s a piece that always jumps out at me and declares itself loudly.
It practically yells out its title to me.
There is something to be said for trying to live by the words that Kipling laid out as a guideline as a father to a son. Sometimes we need a reminder of right living.
I sure did this morning. Glad I was able to have this piece to remind me.
Here’s actor Michael Caine, who cites this poem as a favorite of his, reading the whole Kipling verse, which is included below the video.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Redtree Times 
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