Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things—childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves—that go on slipping, like sand, through our fingers.
Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.
Some ideas are not born of logic and good sense. They are made of clouds and cobwebs. They sprout from nowhere and feed on excitement, sprinkled with adventure juice and the sweet flavor of the forbidden. The psyche moves from the realms of the ordinary and takes a delicate step towards the unknown. We know we shouldn’t and that is exactly why we do.
To realize the value of One Year,
Ask a student who failed his or her AP exams,
To realize the value of One Month,
Ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby,
To realize the value of One Week,
Ask the editor of a weekly magazine,
To realize the Value of One Day,
Ask a wage laborer who has six kids to feed,
To realize the value of One Hour,
Ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realize the value of One Minute,
Ask a person who missed their train.
To realize the value of One Second,
Ask the person who survived an accident.
To realize the value of One Millisecond,
Ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.
Go and get a job. Go and find a flat. Find somebody else. Put them in the flat. Make them stay. Get a toaster. Go to work. Get on the bus. Look at your boss. Say “Fuck.”. Sit down. Pick up the thing. Go blank. Scream internally. Go home. Listen to the radio. Look at the other person. Think, “Why? Why did this happen?”. Go to bed. Lie awake! At night! Get up. Feel groggy. Put the things on - your clothes - whatever they’re called. Go out the door, into work - same thing! Same people. Again. It’s real. It is happening. To you. Go home again. Sit, Radio, Dinner. Mmm. GARDENING, GARDENING, GARDENING, death.
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
