SUCCESS AND SANITY

No one smiles when a friend is ill.

Sanity demands that we laugh at ourselves. In fact laughter heals the soul, according to Solomon. But if it persists it could signal sickness, because sane people don't let years lapse without pursuing their dreams. Nor do they don apish grins when asked about their goals. If so, their laughter is sickness not salutary. Sane people don't use humor to hide their hurts or to silence their haunts (indefinitely at least). This is a tactic of the insane who use mirth to mask their lunacy. Yet beneath their hearty humor is a hurting child in need of healing.

WORKING DREAMS

Moods prevent some and moats prevent others from transforming themselves.

Dreamers labor when failure follows. They battle because they are determined to succeed. In doing so, they create the conditions that nurture their dreams. Characteristically, they use luck when it falls and fear when it stalls and discourages. During these times, moreover, they celebrate themselves for enduring because they know just how easily failure discourages.

SO MUCH

So much of what we say is based on conjecture. So much of what we desire is rooted in illusion. So many of our dreams are as deeply doubted as they are desired. So much of our life is ambiguous, ambivalent, and still-born.