Maintain Courage

When I was younger and was planning to make my way, I wanted to be a doctor. Perhaps naively, I wanted to be able to travel to the most desperate places in the world and ease the suffering there. Heading down that path, fate pulled me in another direction; in the end, placing a pen in my hand. Many a time, over the intervening years, I have felt a duality about being a writer—I am meant to be a writer, I cannot be anything but what I am; nonetheless, I felt I should have been something more useful than a poet. I have since come to realize that a writer holds tremendous responsibilities. A writer can be the conscience of their people—the highlighter of hidden injustice and the voice of the suppressed. A writer's duty lie in maintaining the courage to speak the truth, no matter the cost and to seek out meaning for the masses crying out for it. The symptoms of the inner-ailments manifest themselves as the illnesses of the body. A doctor treats the body—the symptoms only. Yet it is the poet who treats the soul wherein the roots of our torments rage.

I am honored by the gifts I have been given and now I must honor them in return by never lacking the needed courage or becoming lax in that search for meaning.