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.

ON EXHORTATIONS

When fear grips failure grows.

Exhortations discourage when we can't curry the favor we need or accomplish the deed we envision, especially if our labor have been consistent. Then we don't need encouragement, but the opportunity to demonstrate our excellence before an audience beyond our family and friends. In this regard, encouragement helps but doesn't heal our desire to excel.

PRETEND

So much pretense, so little preference. Yet we are obliged to behave as if we care.

Pretend that this time next week everything will change. Then ask yourelf, "What would you change in preparation." Do this daily though the weeks pass uneventfully. How different would your days be? More important, what would you perceive that now bypasses? If nothing else, you would improve your work by your wait if excellence is your goal. Besides, maybe one day the week will come that changes everything. If not, it won't be because you loitered.