journal entry scene from the miniseries Catch-22
"(sitting in barber chair silently reading)
in the movie The Nines Ryan Reynolds had a bracelet to turn everything off before The Nothing hit. i must have misplaced my dumbo's feather or at least forgot my safe word... i love oklahoma? no... praise jesus? no... there's no place like home? crap, these homemade sandals don't work... i give up. don't blame me for the sulfur heavy meteor which breaks up in the atmosphere raining fire down on the entire northern hemisphere... there's always the denver airport. i hear natural medicine is legal there too... legal nature... does that even make sense? oh, wait a second, i'm thinking from an oklahoman's point of view again... colorado isn't governed by idiots. do we still have those 10 commandments up? if so, where is our promised statue of Baphomet? and where are all the fruit trees?!!
well... in memory of my late friend Nika Williams, a poem by 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!
coming soon to a theatre near you.
