SECOND THOUGHTS

One mind is enough for anyone, yet most people aren't satisfied with such. So, they seek second opinions on their first thought. Then when the advice fails they fault the counsel, though cowardice crushed.

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 TIDES

The tide defeats until we perfect our ability to tread water and our willingness to go after our desire. So many, however, choose to blame oceans (and obstacles) for their emptiness.

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.