SAY WHAT

What have you done that makes you feel as if you deserve a place in the sun? What have you given; how much have you grieved? Do you know what it is to hope against hope, still choosing to believe? Does being a fan make you feel like "the man" or "the woman?" When others are sleep, greatness are you wooing? If not, you will always clap and yap about other people; then in the same breath proclaim that we are all created equal.

ON BEING PLIABLE

We must be pliable to be liable for success. In being rigid we are apt to stiffen when we should bend instead. Hence, the importance of passion which, rightly managed, enables us to maneuver accordingly without, however, forfeiting our integrity.

ON TRANSITION

When we get stuck in transition we become transients, wandering the streets and enduring the strokes of those who escaped. (www.joelbryant1.com )

GETTING THROUGH TODAY...

If you can get through today with all of its weight, you can win tomorrow despite the sorrow that threatens or the desires that are waiting to be fulfilled. If you don't, someone else will. It's not that they're better than you. They're just more willing to do what it takes to out-wait the cycles of success, which none can rush.

THE STRONG

The strong survive because they insist on life. They are strong moreover because they discover that the secret is in letting weakness nurture strength, not accuse it. Thus they accept their limits without being inhibited thereby. Instead, they pursue what they desire and endure the ire of circumstances. 'Tis by this that they make their advances.

THE PROBLEM

The problem isn't with success but with our willingness to be seduced by easy formulas that promise to produce. Success is possible but it isn't as docile as some people claim. Those who say such only seek to make a name for themselves based on our fears. (www.joelbryant1.com)

HELPING OTHERS

Helping others nurtures success. You must be able to this or your influence will fade. It's not enough to impress others with your knowledge. You must help them benefit from this. If you can show them how to achieve their greatness, you secure your own. Unfortunately, however, most people are merely consumed with themselves and their ideas. (www.joelbryant1.com)

THE PROPOSAL

By the time we are in the mood, success has moved along or perhaps changed its mind about us. Hence, the time we spend courting and craving its attention, only to become suspicious of its intentions. We want a commitment but it wants a minute to consider our proposal. By the time it decides we have changed our minds, committing to failure instead.

PLEA BARGAINING

The pining to pursue our dreams is so common that it corrupts. Most people render this with the rabid, "If I win the lottery..." How can the heart handle such folly! I understand the relief the idea gives, but I reject the statement that it makes about ourselves. Why must we win the lottery to pursue our destiny? What fears must we defeat? Or are we merely waiting for fortune to favor?

FORTUNE'S TALONS

COMPASSION CORRECTS OUR COURSE.

Fortune's talons are sharpened during our trials. Amid this manicure we manifest what we never imagined. Fortune meanwhile withholds its smile until we envision, adding its polish to our conditions.

ON BEING DIFFERENT

It's hard being different when we desire to be normal. Something about our manner seems stiff and formal, as if we're disconnected and detached. In being so, we are routinely misjudged because of how "we act." Yet if we were merely acting we wouldn't be so passionate about our course. But only those who are different themselves understand the divorce that keeps us from uniting with others against ourselves by choosing to ignore our dreams. Yet this is no consolation, especially when the desire casts us as difficult also. The ache that eats can only be eased by what eludes.

ON GREATNESS

Have you ever seen greatness stripped of its grandeur --I have? Were you shocked or still assured that it was for you? Were you still willing to suffer (and censor) yourself, lest by diappointment you damn your hope? Isn't the angst amazing, how it condemns and encourages? That's what MTV omits. It would rather show the cribs than the crawls achievers endured. Even when it does, it isn't as dynamic. How can it be when years of frustration are pleasantly framed by soothing voice-overs.

AT LEAST

Accept limitations but not inhibitations.

At least consoles when life disappoints. At least it tries. But it's seldom enough to ease because we want the crown, not the consolation.

CHANGING CATEGORIES

Wind and will both overwhelm.

Can you endure the cataclysms of changing categories until you accomplish? Or are you content to be who you aren't with all the anguish that attends because you refuse to atone by enduring? If so, what will you tell your children to aid their evolution? Or will you suggest that they settle?

ON GREATNESS

No one who dreams of greatness is fully sane;

It requires too much for pretension to reign,

Thus those who endure are authentically engaged,

Driven by madness until they achieve,

The rest relent and go their way,

Saved by sanity from its sway.

THE SEEDS OF GREATNESS

Failure frays our essence.

The seeds of greatness sow themselves. They scatter freely but are tended indifferently by most people. Hence, the thinness of their harvests. Most of them labor briefly before abandoning. In doing so, they spend their lives admiring what others cultivated in their stead. Maybe that's why greatness feels so familiar when encountered, and resists when courted. Having been abandoned previously, it senses their inconstancy.

TONES AND TURNS

Our tone determines our turn, whether or not it comes.

I'm sitting here on the balcony writing my 21st and 22nd books. (I generally write two at a time). Eighteen and nineteen are finished but unpublished. It's crazy because I write as if I have an awaiting audience, which I don't. But I must write to retain rationality. Still, it's hard, this need to herald myself. It would be easier if I had an audience beyond my parents (and providence), both of whom no longer read, at least the kind of stuff I write. I don't say this from pity but from the perspective of a person who desires deeply to connect, contend even, with others about his thoughts, to see whether they are valid or not. This claim suggests conceit on my part, as if my words are audience-worthy.

Meanwhile, I've read more books in the last nine months than I read all of last year. How many, however, I can't say. I generally read three at a time to keep from being bored. That doesn't mean I'm smart; I'm just smitten by an urge to know, to consume what I can in case Life requires my learning. The goal, though, isn't to be learned but to enlighten others. If I said otherwise, I would be lying. I don't want fame necessarily, just influence broadly because I'm tired of hearing fools use their tools to deceive others. Most of my circle doesn't understand my obsession.

Yet they see its effects daily because of my indifference to conventional interests, sports and entertainment especially. If they cared as much about themselves as they do about Michael Vick or Michael Jackson, their lives would be majestic! I'm probably being too harsh but I can't help it. Besides, we're all aging, which should be reason enough to make us embrace our neglected aspirations.

If rappers can curse their way to the top, surely we can commit ourselves until we achieve similarly. For me, that means provoking thought and providing guidance through my words. My life isn't exemplary, conventionally speaking. But I do believe that I can help others. Yet I watch daily as vulgarity dons stages constructed creatively by modern technology, cable and satellite television preeminently. I want the same opportunity to be heard, even if only to be rejected. Presently, however, I'm being rejected on the principle of obscurity; encouraged meanwhile by a defiant sense of destiny! Most people with common sense would have quit by now. I've tried but I can't.

HOW MUCH

Hiking requires hubris occasionally to end successfully.

How much space separates you from your place? Have you measured or are you maligned and disinclined to consider? If so, circumstances will conspire to convince you that your desire is impossible. To this claim, however, you should be hostile.

FACTORY FEATURES

Twilight is the first light that flashes when change beckons.

Caution isn’t a feature installed at the factory. We aren’t born equipped to be inclined. We incline because we lean in this direction. Then, however, the goal of life becomes protection. Meanwhile we blame nature for endowing. Nature, however, is risky and reckless, contemptuous of protection because it knows that life must be spent to be preserved. Else we lose our will to live.

THE CHORUS

You have to be porous to hear the chorus that calls some to greatness. Those who can't ignore its chant, being deaf to music.