18 August 2009

"We are not creatures of circumstance, we are creators of circumstance."

- Benjamin Disraeli

WOD: Rest day.

When I read the quote above I was reminded of one of my favorite poems, one that most of us read in high school:

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever Gods may be

for my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the Captain of my soul.

- Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Michael Yon posted another dispatch from Afghanistan yesterday: The Kopp-Etchells Effect.