supremely........................

 There is a way of losing that is finding. When soul overmasters sense. When the noble and divine self overcomes the lower self. When duty and honor and love immortal things bid the mortal perish. It is only when a man supremely gives that he supremely finds.

-Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

About failure.......................

Failure hurts so much that we, as a society, have tried to minimize its impact.  Kids are told that it's okay to fail.  We read how great men and women failed time and again.  We're told that failure is a part of life and it's nothing to get upset about.  At the same time, we're told to learn from our mistakes.  How can we learn from our failures and mistakes if we're told that they're no big deal?
     You can't really have it both ways.  It is the pain that makes failure a step toward success.  By trying to hide your failure or minimize it, what you're really doing is protecting your own ego at the expense of improvement.  We don't get stronger by giving our muscles a little bit of a workout—nothing too painful, nice and steady.  We get stronger when we literally shred our muscle fibers, so that when they grow back, they grow back larger.  It's the trauma, the pain, that builds our bodies.  It's no different when we're going after our dreams.  Experiencing the pain of failure helps us grow.

-Akbar Gbajabiamila, Everyone Can Be A Ninja:  Find Your Inner Warrior And Achieve Your Dreams

Better and stronger..........................?

.........................................Help comes from the strangest places.

Duty...........................

“Fear is never a good counselor and victory over fear is the first spiritual duty of man.” 

-Nicolas Berdyaev, philosopher 

thanks Tony

John E. Smith.........................

.......................................................on overcoming dragons.

The contemptuous trap...........

“In general, the men of lower intelligence won out. Afraid of their own shortcomings and of the intelligence of their opponents, so that they would not lose out in reasoned argument or be taken by surprise by their quick-witted opponents, they boldly moved into action. Their enemies,on the contrary, contemptuous and confident in their ability to anticipate, thought there was no need to take by action what they could win by their brains.” 
-Thucydides

There are many things to love about America....

......................................and this series of events is among them.

Please visit Cultural Offering and view this video.

The immediate aftermath........................

 And now,  at 1,776 feet tall, the new World Trade Center...............

Photo take on, or about, June 19, 2015.

Realization....................................

“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.” 
-Booker T. Washington

via

Quality.....................

“You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind.” 
-Dale Carnegie

image via