8.28.09

Journal Excerpt (8.2.09):

Always haunted am I by the glorious potential of imagination. Imagination which climbs such lofty slopes to where it places its great men. And, with traces of reality it whispers that great men there have always been to do great things; men blessed by talent and conviction to bring about magnificent changes. Their ghosts inspire me, but my own doubts and jealousies wave their fearful hands at empty air repeating the phrases: they are but ghosts, their words were but fantasies, you cannot touch them and they therefore do not exist, replace your vain jealousy with reality, stop grasping at such selfish and nonexistent apparitions, would you carry your dreamy idealisms into a world trying so dearly to teach you its actual occurrences? How long will you consign your spirit to fly before you realize your body has not left the ground?

But, even so, even with these opposing forces--be they fear or reality--there is still the inner flame. A passion deep with that would give this body wings. A force that I can scarce account for, so deeply engraved by a perfect choice of experience. To be honest (admittedly selfish though it may be), I want to be a great man. And not a great man to but a few, for many a great example there are to their blessed and precious friends; a great man and a mover of history. I do not here seek to justify my desire with supposed qualifications of even with a precarious claim to a fictional right; I simply here express the desire, the craving and obsession which so haunts my soul with dream and ambition; with even the hints of potential itself. My greatest fear, I think, is not that it cannot come to be, but that it is not the will of God that so be my mortal sojourn. And alas, herein is manifest my short-sighted greed and fear. And here is where my faith whispers: loosen thy grasp, brother: give yourself to Him without condition or restraint and you will find what your very soul truly seeks; a treasure that even your imagination fails to capture and which cannot be attained by mortal device. Lose yourself, brother; deep down here you have the faith to do it. Do not pine for plans and controls, plan only to let go of everything.