Be Brave my Son: A Poem About Life's Challenges

I wrote this poem for the closing sequence for the TV coverage of the Dakar Rally. The text was changed a little due to political correctness and a failure to understand it fully.

I want to publish my original poem, which is more powerful than the edited version. Here is the original...


 

Be Brave


Be brave my son. For the desert lays claim to your dreams, your hopes, your life.

Be brave, for the dark of night is approaching and your strength will be tested.

 

"Fortune favours the brave," they say. But who is brave enough to test them?

 

You could have stayed at home, stayed safe, and watched from afar.

 

But you choose to stare into the jaws of death. To face the fear that defeats most men before they have begun.

 

Why?

 

For glory? 

 

I think not. Glory vanishes like rain in the desert.

 

For riches? 

 

I doubt it. Riches buy little more than problems and pain.

 

For eternity?

 

Yes, for eternity. To touch that moment that exists beyond time.

 

To feel the razor's edge of the Eternal Now.

 

Unlimited.

 

Infinite.

 

Beyond the slavery of past and future.

 

To embrace the magic of no mind.

 

Where your dreams dissolve and eternity prevails.

 

Where the driver vanishes and driving begins.

 

To live a silent, alert awareness.

 

To be free, in this very moment. The only moment that exists. The only moment you are truly alive.

 

That is why you do it. That is why you risk your life: 

 

to taste what it is like to truly live.

 

 


By Oliver Seligman (author of Befriending Bipolar and The Broker Who Broke Free)

 

I have made a video with some really exciting desert rally footage to go with this poem:

 

https://youtu.be/83z3l0HZaHw

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