A short work by kipling, read out by Greenwood, followed by a conversation on what it said and how it relates to now. It is a very powerful speech.
Link to the writing of the speech, if one prefers to read.
What struck me as the most powerful passage, or at least that which stuck out to me the most.
"If you have a temperament that can accommodate itself to cramping your style while you are thus saving, you are lucky. But, any way, you will be more or less uncomfortable until it presently dawns on you that you have put enough by to give you food and housing for, say, one week ahead. It is both sedative and anti-spasmodic—it makes for calm in the individual and forbearance towards the Tribe—to know that you hold even seven days’ potential independence in reserve— and owed to no man. One is led on to stretch that painfully extorted time to one month if possible; and as one sees that this is possible, the possibilities grow. Bit by bit, one builds up and digs oneself into a base whence one can move in any direction, and fall back upon in any need. The need may be merely to sit still and consider, as did our first ancestors, what manner of animal we are; or it may be to cut loose at a minute’s notice from a situation which has become intolerable or unworthy; but, whatever it may be, it is one’s own need, and the opportunity of meeting it has been made by one’s own self."
If anyone could have a young man read or hear the speech, I would be very interested to hear the result. As a steadily aging man now, it sounds like the things a young man needs to hear, but I'm not sure if they are actually things young men can really internally hear.
Link to the writing of the speech, if one prefers to read.
What struck me as the most powerful passage, or at least that which stuck out to me the most.
Independence Rudyard Kipling : Rudyard Kipling : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
IndependenceRectorial AddressDelivered at St. AndrewsOctober 10, 1923byRudyard KiplingRudyard Kipling praised Independence (of mind not nation) –...
archive.org
"If you have a temperament that can accommodate itself to cramping your style while you are thus saving, you are lucky. But, any way, you will be more or less uncomfortable until it presently dawns on you that you have put enough by to give you food and housing for, say, one week ahead. It is both sedative and anti-spasmodic—it makes for calm in the individual and forbearance towards the Tribe—to know that you hold even seven days’ potential independence in reserve— and owed to no man. One is led on to stretch that painfully extorted time to one month if possible; and as one sees that this is possible, the possibilities grow. Bit by bit, one builds up and digs oneself into a base whence one can move in any direction, and fall back upon in any need. The need may be merely to sit still and consider, as did our first ancestors, what manner of animal we are; or it may be to cut loose at a minute’s notice from a situation which has become intolerable or unworthy; but, whatever it may be, it is one’s own need, and the opportunity of meeting it has been made by one’s own self."
If anyone could have a young man read or hear the speech, I would be very interested to hear the result. As a steadily aging man now, it sounds like the things a young man needs to hear, but I'm not sure if they are actually things young men can really internally hear.