IF

I decided to start a blog.  I figure it’s about time I got with it.  So like all things technological I didn’t know what I was doing. I just jumped in there and set the darn thing up.  Of course the first thing I had to decide was what to name my blog.  Uhhhhh…… I was stumped.

I wanted to pick something which kind of summed things up for me.  I have always liked Rudyard Kipling’s poem “IF.”  I like it for a few reasons;

1.       Many people mistakenly call the poem “The unforgiving minute.” That’s a huge compliment for a poet.  If you can write a turn of phrase which so captures, the emotion and feel of an idea that the phrase becomes the bigger part of the poem – man you’ve done it!

2.      I like the idea of the unforgiving nature of time.  The clock is ticking folks.  You can make the most of the minute or let it slip by.  It’s all up to you.  Time doesn’t care.

3.      I like the infinite nature of time.  No beginning and no end.  We live in the middle of time.  Time was here long before us and will be here long after us.  It’s the middle part we care about.   You can slice time smaller and smaller and smaller, infinitely small, that’s the part I relish.  It’s the little moments that make up a lifetime.  The little things are worth caring about.  The little things matter.  My entire life is a fleeting moment in the perspective of time immemorial.   Imagine how fleeting is a kiss, a touch, a smile but oh those are the moments! You can live an eternity in a tiny drop of time!

So I named my blog The Unforgiving Minute.  I hope you enjoy it.

IF – Rudyard Kipling

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!