Courage
Be you still, be you still, trembling heart;
Remember the wisdom out of the old days:
Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,
And the winds that blow through the starry ways,
Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood
Cover over and hide, for he has no part
With the lonely, majestical multitude.
- William Butler Yeats, "To His Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear"
I'm a fan of Yeats. There is something about his tortured existence that fascinates me. As I said once to a friend, I pity the man for the passionate, unrequited love that tormented him, but it generated such great verse from him, that I find it difficult to feel too bad about it. Even so, there is something I can identify with in most of his verse. Possibly incriminating to my own character, I suppose, since in much of his poetry he's channeling his "love-damned agonized soul" persona.
I have had a few occasions to reflect on this particular poem, along with a couple of lines (taken out of context) from "Against Unworthy Praise" (Nor knave nor dolt can break / What's not for their applause). Essentially, this is because I'm a worrier. I've plenty of grey hairs to prove it. People take great pains to point this out to me.
Barber: "Wow, you have a lot of grey hairs."
Me: "Mm-hmm."
Or sometimes, if I'm feeling sarcastic:
Acquaintance: "Whoa, you have grey hairs."
Me: "Holy shit! Where?? Nooo, I'm meltinnnggggggg....."
I tend to blame genetics. I know a lot of Asians with premature grey on their noggins. Maybe it's because we all have such neurotic parents. I'll blame it on the fact that about 8% of Asian men are direct patrilineal descendants of Genghis Khan, so we spend a lot of time suppressing our natural urge to ride ponies around while shooting arrows at people.
The secret to success -- political, social, or professional, that is -- is to have unwavering confidence in your abilities, and to never admit to being wrong. If you can pin the blame on someone else, all the better, but the important thing is to simply steamroll over everyone else with your absolute certainty. I mean, you could be a shiftless monkey of moderate intelligence in a business suit who never had to work for anything he ever got, and you too could be President of the United States!
Given this realization, I think I'm going to embrace my potential Mongolian ancestry. From now on, since I'm going to look like a potential Khan, I may as well act the part.
Coworker: Hey, could you make these website revisions for me?
The Khan: Fool! I shall enslave your people, and flay your offspring alive! The steppes shall be stained red with the blood of you and yours for centuries to come!
Coworker: Riiight... so, I'll need those by Thursday, mmkay? That'd be great.
The Khan: ... Fine.
I may need to grow a moustache for this.