Kawan-kawan,
Menyimak karangan-karangan Pak Goenardjoadi Goenawan, Pak Jansen Sinamo,
Pak Ary Ginanjar, Pak Gede Prama, Pak Rama Royani dll saya teringat
akan sebuah puisi antik favorit saya (yang selalu memberi inspirasi
dan motivasi setiap kali saya membacanya) berjudul Youth. Puisi tsb
menjadi favorit warga Jepang juga. Ini saya temukan di URL berikut:
http://www.bartleby.com/73/2099.html
Semoga bermanfaat bagi kawan-kawan.
Jabat erat,
KK
NB. Sejak saya di ITB puisi ini sering saya sebar-luaskan, maaf jika
ada yang merasa bosan menerimanya.
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This poem was a favorite of Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Because of MacArthur
this poem has become extremely popular in Japan and a part of Japanese
business reading. I first became aware of it thru a tenugui gift from
Nojiri (Fuji Daruma) sensei after a morning practice at Noma Dojo in
Tokyo. Thanks to Tom Bolling sensei's (research librarian
extraordiniare) help I was able to find the original version in
English.
________
YOUTH
by Samuel Ullman
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter
of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a
quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness
of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the
appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a
man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a
number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to
dust.
Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure
of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy
of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is
a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope,
cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you
young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of
cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at
twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of
optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.
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