Ruminations

For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be.

There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing.

We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you.

I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view.

I hope you live a life you're proud of.

If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness

and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius!

Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves!

Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge!

Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer!

At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: — it will want to rule and possess,

and you with it!

The anguish of the earth absolves our eyes

Till beauty shines in all that we can see.

War is our scourge; yet war has made us wise,

And, fighting for our freedom, we are free.

Horror of wounds and anger at the foe,

And loss of things desired; all these must pass.

We are the happy legion, for we know

Time's but a golden wind that shakes the grass.

There was an hour when we were loth to part

From life we longed to share no less than others.

Now, having claimed this heritage of heart,

What need we more, my comrades and my brothers?