Photo: Julie Kifuk  |  Love your work.  Thank you!

Youth is peculiar to look back at. It’s a time when most of us fumble, yet shine. We are daring because we have not learned to fear. We experiment to break down the mysteries around us, and test our boundaries to see how far they will stretch. Such exploration demands energy, and youth is filled with it.

As we mature, the reckless energy lessens as experience and wisdom take its place. Incompetence gets shaved off to make room for insight. The boundaries we cut through reveal new freedoms, and as our minds become sounder, we become more grounded.

Often when people look back at their youth, they forget how inept they were mentally, and reminisce over how vibrant they were physically. They regret that they didn’t accomplish more, forgetting that they did not know then, what they know now.

Life thrives on balance of physical power to mental energy. First you have the one, then you have the other. But if youth is lived out to the max, then the loss of it does not need to be remorsed, because by losing it, you gain something greater. Youthful beauty and energy are what make youthful stupidity charming and forgivable. Likewise, mature sophistication and grace are what conceal the wrinkles and slower movements that come with age. 

Embracing each season of life is what gives life its potency. Quality of life isn’t found in the fountain of youth, but in the fountain of life. To continue drinking from it at every stage will keep us fresh, alive, and invigorated to the end.

Photo | Zhanna Krukovets | Amazing

To not give up is not a one-time decision. We must decide to keep going every time a new struggle rears its head.  

We’ve all heard the never give up speech. The message is typical. It is simple, striking and when channeled with enough enthusiasm the idea is enough to fuse the masses. But what does it mean? What does “giving up” really mean?

Giving up is tricky business. The thing is altogether a mental game, a full-on battle of the mind. We can’t really see it by looking at someone from the outside. We don’t really know if a person has thrown in the towel or not, though they may continue to do something we don’t know if it’s ritual or real forward motion.

Not giving up is an ongoing process rather than a constant state, that’s probably why Churchill thought it necessary to emphasize the word “never” by repeating it nine times in his short “Never Give In” speech. A person doesn’t decide to not give up just once. The decision must get repeated over and over. Once the decision is made, it carries us through a moment or project and then some other struggle comes up and we have to decide again.

Again we move forward till we face the next resistance and the battle begins again. The act of not giving up can get automatized, to flow like an ingrained habit.But that may not be best. Each decision to keep going should be made with fresh eyes and vigor because mere habit may lead us to keep going even in cases when we are heading in the wrong direction. You should never give in a struggle that is on point, but you should always give up the battle that you should not be fighting in the first place.

When the battle is right, the person who keeps going, daunted by neither victory nor defeat, is a wonder to enchant us all. Just look around— every man-made thing of consequence was created by such a person. A person who did not give up.

This man— part investigative phenomenon, part badass journalist, part friendly conversationalist. When asked, “who is your favorite journalist and why?” George Packer swiftly came to mind and stayed there.

He is a playwright, a novelist and a reporter for The New Yorker.  I met him last October after an interview at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg.  He was intriguing to watch as he thoughtfully listened to the questions posed and responded with clear answers even when the asked was barely decipherable.  His face had something interesting about it when Kelly McBride asked why people open up to him, he smiled saying, “it’s because I have a friendly face, or at least I think so.”  I think so too.

I remember a lot of what he said because it was genuine and grounded, without the circumlocutory verbiage which makes my mind spin in desultory circles.

Though flourishing as a contemporary reporter his roots are deeply set in all those old-school ways and time-tested principles.  He pays homage to history, tracks down old articles, does a lot of digging before beginning a new assignment and reads books. Things like: Mostly Martha, Exiles in Eden, Orwell, Nypal, Normal Wailer, Elison’s, Invisible Man are among his favorites and most importantly he reads poetry every night to keep his mind saturated in beautiful language.

Those nightly poetry readings are perhaps the trick to his redolent opening lines and the bits of feeling found in his reporting.  His tactic: “Move them, change their mind a lot— bring the world to the reader.”

After getting sour looks at the mention of Shakespearian English I decided that a little lesson in old English would be just the thing.  Shakespeare, the King James Bible, and Henry VIII’s love poems could all be converted into delightful reads with just a few helpful hints.

Like everything else on this unstable planet, words change over time.  Luckily, there is no need to feel like a zany when it comes to interpreting thee’s and thou’s— all you have to do is decipher a few key phrases and “how art thou” will sound no more complex then “wuzzup.”

Doth— does

Thee/thy/thine/thou— you

Ye— you or the

Yon/yonder— over there

Shall—must or can

Anon— later

***

Froward— stubborn

Zany— a silly or foolish person.

As you will— okay or whatever. .

Perchance— maybe or possibly.

Verily— truly

Wherefore— why

***

Now read this: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?  And modernize it: Can I compare you to a summer’s day?

PHOTO | ANNA KARENINA (2012)

A copy of Anna Karenina sat on my bookshelf, undisturbed for years.  It grew into something like a permanent installment or an immovable part.  I was so accustomed to seeing it, yet it never occurred to me to actually pick it up, open it, and possibly even read it.

Recently, the Russian classic made a comeback and as the name sprung up everywhere I turned, I tried to remember the familiar story, but realized that it was not familiar at all.  I have seen a couple film adaptations, but reading Tolstoy and watching Tolstoy are two entirely different matters so I plunged into the 800-page masterpiece.

The title suggests that the main character of the story is, Anna Karenina– she gets all of the publicity in adaptations, but she is just one of the many characters in Tolstoy’s web of acquaintances and relations.  The main storyline centers around Levin’s search for the meaning of life and his battle with those age-old questions: who am I and why am I here?

Levin first appeared in the book as an agnostic.  He abandoned his childhood faith during college replacing his Christian convictions with the intellectual trend of skepticism and doubt which sought to explain life through reason and science.  He hopped on the wagon but was too honest with himself to simply overlook the shortcomings of his newly adopted world view.  For him, science did not answer the most basic soul-gnawing questions and he was left to struggle with his purposeless existence.  He wrestled with himself tirelessly throughout the novel till he arrived back at the beginning— a renewed faith in God.

“I know!  I know not by reason but it is revealed to me and I know it with my heart, by faith…” he concluded as the revelation struck him while lying on a rich, grassy field near a herd of cattle.  The search for faith is actually the central theme of the book, while Anna Karenina’s tragic love story continues to dominate the theme in films (the best of which is the 1997 film starring Sophie Marceaux). The story ended happily for Levin who found faith, while tragically for those who snubbed it.

Written in a bitterly realistic style, the book is heavy and deep but exquisite for its wide and expansive study of the domino-effect that is triggered by the decisions and actions of every character.