I cannot remember how long I have carried a folded, handwritten, dog eared version of Kipling’s genial poem in my wallet. The wallet itself has certainly changed a few times, and I vaguely recall it being something I at least discussed with my late father, which would be nice if it is true, as Kipling wrote it for his son, John. My memory may be tricking me, though — I know I sent my father a hand-written version of another poem I love when he was ill in hospital some twenty years ago, so perhaps that is why I perceive that connection.
In any case, here it is, in my handwriting, and every day for however many years it has been, it sits there and travels round with me, often untouched for weeks on end. The paper has more or less disintegrated by this point, and in the break between the top and bottom sections, a line is badly damaged. Indeed, when I recently opened it all up, a few minutes after putting it back away, my wife found a single word on a tiny bit of paper on the floor, which nows sits back inside the folds. It seems fitting that the paper has become so worn and tatty — I am sure the years have had an equivalent effect on me.
Reading the lines again, the beauty and wisdom of each word and message are still intact, and perhaps more relevant in this current world than they were when I copied them out. Like many of the other passages in literature, art and philosophy that seems essential to me, they are timeless, and could shape each moment of our lives if only we could remember them at all times, or perhaps somehow absorb them. This is the “unimaginally hard” task that David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water” details—to stay “conscious and alive…day in, day out”, and it reminds me of the way a friend and I talked of needing to keep the critical messages front of mind when we were teenagers, spellbound by the urgency of Camus and others. We spoke of needing to “write these messages on our eyelids”, so that we couldn’t forget them, or get caught up in trivial nonsense and lose sight of the fragility of our lives.
So, what to put on the back of my eyelids today, to help me stay present and aware through these strange times we are in, and to remember to commit fully to each moment, and to remind me to be who I would like to be, for myself and those around me? Today, I choose these: “if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too”. Now all I have to do is remember to blink, in the face of an onslaught of challenges!
