CERTITUDE

You need an absolute, unshakeable certainty and conviction in your own self-worth and in the wonder and beauty of life. It is only with that at the core of your being that you can then clearly and vigorously look at your life, the community around you and human life upon this planet in such a way that you can come to the crux of the problem; which is the solution of it all. Not a wilful stubborness or a blind faith in unjustifiable ideas but a grounded and honest understanding that at one's centre lies a clear vision and an emotional honesty and passion that allows us the strength to take on the messy vicissitudes of the world and the obvious contradictions that exist in our own being. You will need an inner strength to be able to strip bare all the conditioning and the dross that so fills our lives and propels us to actions we can't possibly excuse. Joseph Campbell said: " the privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." And how many of us allow ourselves the time and space to find out who we really are. It is quite simple and a wonder. It is not navel-gazing. It is about the fact that we can't take responsibility for our place in the world till we take responsibility for who we are.