Know your own mind - be fiercely independent.
Do not be afraid to voice your opinion or to take a different view.
Espouse to be hard-working, courageous, warm hearted and witty.
Know the difference between empathy and sympathy and know when to show both.
Uphold the standards of intelligence, accuracy and balance.
Do not be afraid to admonish or encourage, to argue or support.
Someone with integrity will do all this and more.
Do not be overly worried about what you have or have not.
Let your word be all that is required and may your example be your epitaph.


          Losing It - Rush

The dancer slows her frantic pace
 In pain and desperation
 Her aching limbs and downcast face
 Aglow with perspiration

 Stiff as wire, her lungs on fire
 With just the briefest pause
 The flooding through her memory
 The echoes of old applause

 She limps across the floor
 And closes her bedroom door...

 The writer stare with glassy eyes
 Defies the empty page
 His beard is white, his face is lined

 And streaked with tears of rage

 Thirty years ago, how the words would flow
 With passion and precision
 But now his mind is dark and dulled
 By sickness and indecision

 And he stares out the kitchen door
 Where the sun will rise no more...

 Some are born to move the world
 To live their fantasies
 But most of us just dream about
 The things we'd like to be
 Sadder still to watch it die
 Than never to have known it
 For you, the blind who once could see
 The bell tolls for thee...