I was
listening to the Rudyard Kipling poem “If” this evening, it is a wonderfully
inspirational poem from a father to a son.
It should be required reading in every school charged with helping young
people become adults. Its wisdom serves
us to this day, and I wonder if in its simple guide it marks the separation of
those who strive to succeed and those who don’t?
Those who
read this, and who have read other short pieces by me will understand I am
always in search of why things are, and how we can deal with our
differences. It is right to be
different, as we are made to be. If our
world were homogeneous how boring life would seem. But without the respect for those differences
and tolerance of our faults we boil and bubble into a froth of hate and
scorn. The lines “Or being lied about,
don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating” seems to me the
core to civil political discourse and what I believe separates the common from
the radical. Thank you Mr. Kipling.
1 comment:
Transcendent poetry-yes. I had already been exposed to it, but then my eight grade teacher had us recite it in unison. She was wonderful. Poetry was part of every week, unless we were working on lines of Shakespeare. She also managed not to neglect grammar and usage.
But to your point...it is mine to not agree with , approve of or appreciate some of the many differences manifested amongst people, but not to hate or seek to influence them with other than civil means that must be in themselves a good example of that which one proposes to value. But Kipling said it much better, I only wish he had written to a daughter too.
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