Tag Archives: Rudyard Kipling

health, wealth, and happiness

By jackcollier7 on January 26, 2017 | Leave a comment

The Greatest Gift You Can Give the World is a Healthy You.

Sometime around the first century AD, Roman poet Juvenal, (Decimus lunius luvenalis), wrote this;

you should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body

ask for a stout heart that has no fear of death

and deems length of days the least of nature’s gifts

that can endure any kind of toil

that knows neither wrath nor desire and thinks

the woes and hard labours of Hercules

better than the loves and banquets and downy cushions of sloth

what I commend to you, you can give to yourself

for assuredly, the only road to a life of peace is virtue.

Except Juvenal wrote it in Latin, and he wrote Sardanapalus, not sloth. It actually rhymes much better in Latin. This is from where we get the phrase ~ mens sana in corpore sano ~ a sound mind in a sound body.

To me, this reads a lot like Kipling, who was also very adept at giving good advice to young men; for example in his seminal poem IF Kipling explains what it takes to be a Man. Sir Henry Newbolt with Vitai Lampada, gave a more inspirational lead. But for hard advice the Maxims to Guide a Young Man, which appeared in the 1850’s maybe says it all. After a long career in banking, my personal advice to a young man echoes Shakespeare’s from Hamlet; Neither a borrower nor a lender be…

Even two thousand years later Juvenal’s advice is sound. He’s telling us not to lay about eating, drinking, having sex, (all things that the ancient Romans excelled at), but instead live an energetic life of courage, self-discipline, and virtue. Every great teacher before and since, including Jesus Christ and the Buddha, says more or less the same things. The Noble Eightfold Path could have come straight from Juvenal.

Life is difficult and painful. The way to freedom from pain lies in courage, hard work, and self-discipline. And by the way, don’t get cynical, envious, impatient, apathetic, or angry along the way ~ these negative emotions will not serve you well.

Neither in a man nor a woman is negativity a pretty sight

eightfold path jack collier

jackcollier7@talktalk.net

Posted in: Casual Sex, Health, Lifestyle, Literature, Personal Style, Psychology, Spirituality | Tagged: Buddha, interpersonal relationships, Jesus Christ, Juvenal, Mens Sana in Corpore Sano, Rudyard Kipling, Urban Survival Skills for Men

English Independence

By jackcollier7 on June 29, 2016 | 7 Comments

The writing was on the wall when Britain refused to have anything to do with Europe’s grandiose, fatally flawed scheme to replace the national currencies of its member states with a single pan-European currency, the Euro.

The usual suspects were all in favour of Britain dumping the Pound Sterling, and accepting the new Monopoly Money currency. Left-Liberal politicians, Europhile officials, and the leaders of big business all warned that Britain was destined for economic failure if we did not adopt the Euro ~ well that was a load of bull droppings. The Euro has proved a disaster, especially for the smaller, less wealthy countries, Greece, and Ireland being two notable examples.

These same usual suspects are trumpeting the same doom and gloom now that the people of England have voted to leave a club we didn’t even know we were joining. If you lived here you would be heartily sick of the amount of air-time the pro EU BBC are giving to the vapid talking heads.

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. ~ Rudyard Kipling

The European Union was sold to the English as a free trade zone, not as an attempt to replace the sovereign nations of Europe with a sort of United States of Europe, with a single European Government, mostly made up of unelected technocrats. This was just a small part of the internationalists goal of a one-world government. Not only that, the corrupt European Union receives, net, billions of £ from England, every single damn year. Some of that money comes back to the United Kingdom disguised as EU largesse.

And that is called paying the Dane-geld; but we’ve proved it again and again, that if once you have paid him the Dane-geld you never get rid of the Dane. ~ Rudyard Kipling

There are some immediate downsides to the English electorate’s decision to walk away from the European Union;

Total chaos in the United Kingdom’s political system. (We English despise all politicians, with the exception of Churchill, and possibly Thatcher.)
Total chaos in the financial markets, especially the City of London. (So what, some City cowboys are just using Brexit to make money.)
A down-grading of Britain’s credit rating from AAA+ to AA. (Good, we borrow too much anyhow.)
A resurgence of the loony Left-Liberals, all of whom are saying that the electorate was wrong, stupid, ill-informed, and we want another referendum, preferably one we can rig. (Have you seen the joke they call Jeremy Corbin?)
New calls for Independence in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales, and by the way these countries don’t want to leave the EU. (Good, these countries are a drain on England’s prosperity, and they all hate the English.)

You want to know what the ‘man on the Clapham Omnibus’ thinks about those downsides ~ the average Englishman doesn’t give a damn. We do not like being told what to do by a bunch of Johnny Foreigners, we don’t like uncontrolled immigration, we really don’t like politicians, unelected officials, the leaders of big business, and pseudo intellectual professors who would like England to be a communist country. As always England will prevail in the end.

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ ~ Rudyard Kipling.

After the immediate chaos, the politicians had better negotiate an EU exit deal which is satisfactory to the average Englishman. If they don’t, if they try to sell the same old stinking fish in new wrappings, the chaos you see now will be as nothing to the upheaval to come. Politicians need to remember that the ballot box is a two-edged sword, and sometimes it cuts off the heads of the complacent.

Historically, England has always looked to the sea. Every single time England has become involved in the politics of Europe it has cost us dear.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour. ~ Churchill

My American friends also have reasons to be worried. As you are about to celebrate your Independence Day, the independence of the U.S.A. is under increasing attack by the United Nations, ably assisted by your incumbent President and staunch UN proponent, Mr Barak Obama.

jackcollier7@talktalk.net