if you're going to try, go all the way

"

There is a light somewhere it may not be much light but it beats the darkness

You can't beat death but, you can beat death in life, sometimes 

And the more often you learn to do it the more lights there will be.

"

I fell into Charles Bukowski's poems and quotes, like many of us, while wasting my time around the www in search for content, videos that I can relate to, that bring me to reflect. Sometimes on very big things and sometimes on very subtle ones. 

The following poem is extracted from its novel Factotum. It is packed with so many emotions or at least it brings me so much of them that it's really hard to describe. It made me feel sadness, immense inner strength, anger, rage, lights surrounding me, agony, the heavy weight of one life's journey and this strong hope on what one could achieve . . . All those, at once.

Sometime I found it terrible that most of the amazing artists, authors that walked this earth, did not live to reap the rewards of their work. Nor to see how they impacted so many lives in so many ways. I like to think that they didn't do it for fame, neither for money. At least most of them. They did what they did because they had to, they had this urge that one cannot explain. An urge that defies everything and everyone. 

They were in advance of their time, they saw things that we can't imagine, they felt in ways that we can't even start to comprehend, they were so much ahead of the masses.

They were pioneers of the pioneers, masters among the masters. 

Here you have a reading of the poem I wanted to share and below the so motivated verses.

"

If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. 

This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. 

It could mean not eating for three or four days. 

It could mean freezing on a park bench. 

It could mean jail. 

It could mean derision. 

It could mean mockery - isolation. 

Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, 

of how much you really want to do it. 

And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. 

And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. 

If you’re going to try, go all the way. 

There is no other feeling like that. 

You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. 

You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. 

It’s the only good fight there is.

"

Charles Bukowski