In these trying times we find ourselves reaching out,
reaching out first of all to family and friends, then also to all those former
friends, colleagues, acquaintances.
We often say “how would we have managed without modern tech
and the ability to connect”. I say we have always connected, perhaps less
knowingly and less consistently, but connect we do.
We find ourselves mulling over days gone by, learning about
former pandemics and in general going back, as if we were afraid to project
into the future.
I won’t address that problem, but these past days have had
one poem running through my head with great insistence so I went and re-read
Rudyard Kipling’s….
(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)
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!
So here’s to hoping that there will be many men and women “made”
during this
Apocalypse or Coronalypse.
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