Adversity, my new friend.

Thoughts being forged from the hell of quitting smoking:

- sympathy and support are two of the greatest things a human can give or receive.

- empathy is a myth. If you haven't experienced it yourself, sshhh...

- your romantic partner is NOT your therapist. They WILL mistake your fears for complaints. 

- nicotine is a powerful drug. This is NOT a psychosomatic experience, it's chemical warfare!

- everyone limps through life on their own personalized crutches.

- adversity breeds success, unique ability, invention, creativity, power! and much, much more. It sparks ideas and flexes muscles. Michael Jordan was cut from the basketball team in his sophomore year, Joni Mitchell had polio as a child, so did my man Arthur C. Clarke, so did this guy:                                                                                      

Bboy Junior + one weak little leg.
One weak little leg + lust for (life+music+dance) + practice = one massive upper body.        

One massive upper body +  a slightly altered centre of gravity = FRESH NEW STYLE!

Adversity gives birth to story... no one wants to hear about the awesome guy who had it awesome his whole life. 

***

Today, Kipling's poem reads like a list of personal failures, but I still find it motivating.

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 all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath 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!

–Rudyard Kipling