Or walk with kings nor lose the common touch

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you

If all men count with you but none too much…

This is the first part of the last stanza of Rudyard Kipling’s poem If, and it’s always puzzled me the most. I talk with a lot of crowds and I’m trying to figure out what virtue you might lose as a result of it.

Is it that Kipling bent the truth when he presented to people?

I do know that you cannot convey everything, a presentation is like a story arc, and you need to adhere only to those pertinent details that forward the story. You can’t include irrelevant details.

Is it these omissions that over time cheapen and cause you to lose your virtue? Is it because you know you’re not giving every single mundane reality to the audience?

But wouldn’t they appreciate your shaping of the story?

I remember one storyteller who responded to my excitement at her accomplishments by saying, “Honey, never believe your own hype.”

Maybe it’s like when the ringleader is announcing the next act, it’s something they’ve rehearsed and rehearsed till it’s old hat, and yet it feels new to the audience. Is it this that the line is referring to? Are you a bit of a fraud because you present something that is well rehearsed? Does that mar your virtue?

I don’t think so.

Even though I’ve done many of my presentations thousands of times, I never feel like I’m rattling them off. I never feel that my virtue is ever in danger.

So maybe this is one line that is a bit of a clunker in the poem. Well at least it’s not something I’ve experienced.

I do understand the bit about walking with kings but not losing the common touch.

Having come from a very ‘common’ background, there’s something very up front and blunt about that class of people.

Even now that my circumstances are more comfortable, the urgency and edge to my writing that was there during the lean years has been blunted.

There is truth to that old adage ‘the starving artist’. When you are desperate you do reach deeper to be successful.

And as for not letting foes or loving friends hurt you, I think that’s just wise. You have to keep yourself intact. Never give more of your heart than you’re willing to lose.

I think my faith helps here.

And the line about if all men count with you but none too much, reminds me a bit of a cult-like following. You don’t want people worshipping yourself or your words.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds worth of distance run

Then yours is the earth and everything that’s in it

And which is more

You’ll be a man

My son.

Nice sentiment, filling the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run. Reminds me, I really need to get my technowhiz son in law to remove Spider solitaire from my computer. My attempts at controlling myself are not working and even though I do get a lot of work done, it’s not sixty seconds worth.

And the biggest flaw of the poem you’ll be a MAN my SON… alas, maybe Mr. Kipling couldn’t have imagined his words would have applied just as equally to women.

Too bad.

Otherwise it’s a really good poem.

I don’t care if it’s a bit exclusionary. I still try to live by it.