It’s a new year and a time perhaps for new resolutions & new beginnings for many.
For all those starting out, beginning, changing, moving on, for all the students, apprentices, teachers, trainers, job seekers, new starters, employees, managers, and just about everybody else, take time to discover this wonderful poem by a great European, the reluctant Philosopher President of Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992 and then President of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003, the greatly admired Vaclav Havel, instrumental in the non violent Velvet Revolution that eventually led to the downfall of the Communist totalitarian régime in Czechoslovakia in 1989.
When in prison for his activities, he wrote in 1981: “I agree with Levinas when he says that responsibility cannot be preached, but only borne, and that the only possible place to begin is with oneself. It may sound strange, but it is true: it is I who must begin“. Vaclav Havel died in December 2011 but he still speaks to all Europeans today at a time when European values and societies are under attack from so many predators, totalitarians and “illiberal democrats”
It is I who must begin
Once I begin, Once I try,
Here and now,
Right where I am,
not excusing myself by saying that
things would be easier elsewhere,
without grand speeches and ostentatious gestures,
And all the more persistently,
to live in harmony
with the Voice of Being
as I understand it within myself
As soon as I begin that,
I suddenly discover to my surprise
That I am neither the only one
Nor the first,
Nor the most important one
to have set out on upon that road
And whether or not all is entirely lost
depends on whether or not I am lost
OneWorld - Joseph Noone's Blog 