Howdy,
You know how when you notice something you start seeing it?
Like if …
“IF—
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 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!”
—Rudyard Kipling
Recently we bought shirts for our two oldest boys, Jasper and Titus, and initiated an informal “ceremony” that is to be ongoing for their growing up and manhood-to-be — we kicked around calling it a “sir-emony” but figured we keeping thinking on it. Jasper’s shirt says, “You’ll be a Man, my son!” from the Rudyard Kipling poem (above — I just wanted to type it!), and Ti’s boldly states in blue, “Man in the Making!” (Shirts purchased from The Art of Manliness, which is just kind of fun when you have boys to bring up.)
Hawes men in the making
Anyway, since getting the “You’ll be a Man, my son!” shirt, I’ve run into the poem twice — in a stack of papers randomly given to me and tonight on the wall of Jimmy Johns (where I had Jasper read the last half of the last line, and he could do it!)
I fondly recall such types of connections between courses in college, when a new idea discovered sprung up in other classes or subsequent semesters or life outside the classroom. Insight and interconnections. Neat stuff.
So a fun question is, what have you been paying attention to that’s now staring back at you?
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Living.
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