Stoking The Flame

You might feel that you have everything worked out, that you’re already ahead of the game. Perhaps you’ve reached or exceeded the goals you set for yourself to complete “by the time you turn 30” or “by the end of the year” or “by the time your contract position is up”.

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Perhaps, living like a statue, frozen in time and space, you have settled into the footprints that once marked movement towards a greater destination, perhaps you let your feet sink into this soft ground and put down roots. The roots might be strong, the soil may be fertile, dreams are shelved “for now” to bask in the lazy shade of comfort by the well-travelled road.

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Perhaps you will linger like a Roman villa, columns crumbling under the weight of time and the duress of disuse. Once the symbol of present and future prosperity and bygone expertise, sadly fallen into disarray, you might justify your state of affairs: “never much time anymore, too much to do,” perhaps you might even feign acceptance: “I’ve had my day,” or perhaps even worse “I don’t know where to begin.”

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Deep in overgrown foundations, despite defensive rhetoric on the contrary, you know that man is not made from stone. Man is not carved and left, inflexible, to stand the test of ages. The highest aspiration of man, the heroic principle that burned within Beowulf, and Gautama Buddha, and Genghis Khan, roils like hot lead in a crucible: glows eerie with all the fires of every passion that engenders movement, that fortifies the will.

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All that is needed to bring leaden limbs to liquid action is fire. A spark that stokes the fuel, that warms the furnace, that heats the crucible. The rosy marrow that rises and bubbles, daring the world to let it escape, can be cast, melted down, recast, and melted again. The immutable ore of heroism, the germ that builds nations, lives inside of every man, under his exclusive control.

A spark is the only necessary catalyst.

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We hope you find yours here.

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