Dusk

It's Sunday night and not my favourite moment because Monday Blues start to build up even before the day is over. To add to my sense of melancholy, dusk starts to set in. I've never liked dusk. It's hard to explain why. A dark night's skyline is fine with me but the colour of sundown tends to bump me out immensely.

I've never understood how people enjoy watching sunsets and find solace and romance in the moment. I've always tried to avoid being outdoors or looking outside when dusk is just about setting in. It somehow darkens my mood and whatever worries or problems I've managed to leave aside tend to seep back in.

Tonight is one such moment. And for some reason, a poem I've read some 7 years ago is beckoning to me. What, oh what is this supposed to tell me?

If - By Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
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,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!