Due to my Istanbul trip my blog was surely not in a blooming state. But before moving on with life/tech. blog entries after such a long time-out, I felt I should fuel my blogging spirit with some inspirational thoughts. Hopefully this inspiration will be transformed to some form of writing energy and freedom of imagination.
We may not be able to reverse time in any sense, yet we can learn to value every moment and embrace the constant change of life. That’s why I wanted to share the famous poem of Samuel Ullman about “Youth” today.
Samuel Ullman – “YOUTH”
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.
Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.
On second thought, my imagination might already be floating free, I am the one who is trapped inside it?!?