As a fifth grader, I knew that the President of the United States was an immensely successful man. He had his own plane, that would fly him anywhere he wanted to go, had a bed, and stocked his favorite sodas. He had the baddest bodyguards on the planet. He had a secret underground base right under his house, he got rock stars to visit for dinner, and he could go to any event he wanted to. He had his own movie theater, his own bowling alley, and his own TV studio. This studio is only as good as what it could broadcast. As a fifth grader, I probably wanted to make Batman movies with my friends and show it to the nation. As an adult, I know that the president canπt do this. He has to be exceptionally careful about what he says and how he says it. Much of what he says is carefully scripted by dozens of writers and advisors. His every hand movement is choreographed and his clothes are selected by experts. Nothing that he does is his own. If he cannot be honest, then he cannot be a success.

To me, a successful man can say and do what he wants. When faced with a crisis, whether it be ethnic cleansing in Darfur or an unjust electric bill, he can step up to the public square and shout it down. Many men speak freely in the confines and comfort of their own cars. They rail at the traffic, lectured the pedestrians and harangue the traffic lights. But put that same man in front of a traffic cop, and his manner will shrink to that of a small, well-fed, farm animal. Success arrives after a stern test; you must be able to speak up when it comes to skin and bone.

First off, to be truly successful, you need to be free. When we think of freedom, we generally we think of a five year old running in a field in the middle of a summer afternoon. Freedom, even for the five year old, has three important flavors. First, he needs to be free from fear. He cannot play and you cannot speak if you are afraid that your toys will be taken away or you will lose your job. Second, you need financial freedom. The five year old doesnπt think of money; his parents buy him all the bananas and gogurt he can eat. The Patriot needs enough money to survive. Finally, you need emotional freedom. The five year old, deep in mud and grass stains, knows that his mother will love him all the more when he gets home. The patriot needs his own emotional stability, both within himself and without. With these three freedoms, the tools are laid for future success.

Fear paralyzes. When we are afraid, we only think of our survival and the survival of our friends. Tyrannies, both political and social, are good at manipulating our fears. In 1984, Oceania and Big Brother silenced its patriots by making all dissent not only illegal, but immoral: ≥Freedom is Slavery.≤ Once given that control, then Oceania works on eliminating the actual words before finally eliminating free thought itself. To be free from this fear, you need to first free your mind from pointless fears. To often, we fear our own shadows or we fear a punishment that means nothing. If others sneer or mock our words, it neither cuts us nor our friends. Then you need to be physically free. You may need to leave a country where patriots are imprisoned or a community that will punish you or your kids for speaking out against the schools.

In order to move about freely, and be free from fear, the patriot needs to be free from want. In other words, he needs to have a full enough wallet and a full enough mind to let him ≥retire≤ from the ropes. In business, executives seek to have ≥Bulls### money≤; where, if they want to, they can call ≥Bulls###≤ and walk away. To an account executive from Greenwich, this may seem to be a huge pile of loot, but it neednπt be. All it needs to be is enough money to move away and start over. You need money for food, money for an apartment, In addition to money, you also need skills that are portable enough and useful enough to be in demand somewhere else. Everyone needs a good surgeon. Either skills or money give you one important measure of freedom.

Most importantly, a patriot needs to be free emotionally. On one hand, he should have faith in himself. If he can live without the approval and the love of others, he can operate beyond the bounds of their friendship or derision. In Emersonπs words, you must be able to ≥Trust thyself. Every heart vibrates to that iron string.≤(≥Self-Reliance, Emerson) Beyond that, you need to have the support of those that you love. None of us, not even Emerson, go through the world entirely alone. If we are lucky, we have wives, parents, children, and lifelong friends. Thoreau could not write Walden without the support of Emerson. Tim Lepore could not mouth off to the town or to the superintendent without the support and indulgence of his wife: ≥the only person whose opinion I respect is my wife. And only half the time. ≥(Interview, 4.28.08).

Once a man is free from the snares, he has the opportunity to become a success. He is able to walk onto the playing field. Merely being able to play the game does not produce success, he also needs to play it well.

A successful man needs to brings the truth; when he chooses to speak, his words matter. Most men know the truth deep within themselves. They either cannot articulate that truth or they refuse to admit it. Before the Iraq war, many politicians and wise men knew that the whole enterprise was folly at the highest level. Howard Dean stood up at California Democratic convention and began his speech with ≥What I want to know, what I want to know, is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President's unilateral intervention in Iraq?≤ (http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/cdp0303/dean031503spt.html). While ir may seem obvious to us, five years later, his words were a revelation to the Democrats in Sacramento. Once he had entered the arena, he was able to utter the truth that others knew, but would not speak. Had Dean, like other Democratic leaders, simply echoed the President, his words would have fallen down into the media roar. Instead, he became one of the leaders of the Democratic party.

An audience will listen to a man who has ethos, or quality. On Nantucket, voters listen and approve of Dr. Tim Lepore. He is not a well-known educational philosopher, he is a surgeon. People come to him with life and death problems, not reading and writing ones. Yet, since he has been so wise and helpful with patients and their families, they trust the schools to him. In his position, he has called the newspaper ≥fishwrap≤ and the Superintendent ≥out to lunch.≤(Op. Cit. Interview) Had Tim not been known for his skill and his commitment, his words would not be heeded. Tim Lepore, ditch-digger and scratch ticket professional, wouldnπt get so much as a glance. As he is a man of education and caring, his words will brook lightning.

Being able to speak honestly and have an audience give you their initial attention is important, but the patriot also needs to be able to speak well. To stand in the Arena and to keep the audiences attention, you must be able to speak well. Barack Obama, comes to the public forum freely, speaks honestly and commands attention, but if he could not speak with skill, his audience would fade away. When he stood before the Democratic National Convention in 2004, he said ≥There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- thereπs the United States of America.≤(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awQkJNVsgKM). This formulation is not an accident of memory, but a clear plan but Obama to use repetition and parallel construction to pronounce a truth that we all knew to be true. This skill in speaking, rhetoric, is what commands the audience. In the words of Plato "Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men."

In Julius Caesar, two well-known orators contest for the future of Rome. Both men had ethos. Brutus had been a long serving Senator in the Roman Senate and was well known as honorable and wise. Mark Antony was well known as an athlete, a soldier, and as a friend to Caesar. The audience knew full well what the importance of this moment was. Both men spoke the truth. To Antony, he spoke of his grief at his friendπs murder. To Brutus, he spoke of his grief at the loss of the republic. However, one man had a better command of rhetoric. Marc Antonyπs speech inspired the crowd to a hurricane of fury, grief, and war. Eventually, this fury led him to a military victory.

Unfortunately, such command of rhetoric can also lead to disaster. In 1877, Mark Twain gave the keynote speech to one of the most remarkable dinners in American literary history. Sitting on the dais with him was Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The Boston Daily Advertiser called it "without doubt the most notable that has ever been seen in this country within four walls," (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton/onstage/whittier.html). Yet, the speech that Twain gave bombed. After which, Twain commented that ≥My pain and shame were so intense, and my sense of having been an imbecile so settled, established and confirmed, that I drove the episode entirely from my mind≤ (Ibid.) Even one of the top American writers can fail in the arena. Rhetoric is the place setting at the table; the meal itself is the honest thought and belief that lie beneath.

A successful man, a patriot, is able to ≥able to say and do what he wants.≤ He has freedom bought from love and hard work. His audience sees him and knows his character. He speaks honestly and with careful art. Even at this point, he has to wrestle with one last conundrum. What does he want?

Very few know what they truly want. Instead, we prattle on about what we think we want. We think we want the new job, the new house, the new wife when really we want something far different. Instead of reflecting and looking to the light in our own hearts, we go with what is easiest. In 2002, I wrote that ≥Food is love. It never refuses, it always gives pleasure and it asks nothing of itself.≤ (≥Islandπs Legendary Foods≤; Nantucket Map and Legend, Vol. 80, Issue 22; page 30.) Fifty pounds later, I know that I was wrong. In search of carbohydrate euphoria, I missed the true happiness of a well acted and balanced life. I could have, and did, make many speeches to friend and enemies about the pleasures of the table and the vine. All of these were well received, but none of them spoke to what I truly wanted.

To speak clearly, a patriot must be silent. He needs to spend time alone in the company of his own soul and reflect on what irritates it. Martin Luther King, in his ≥Letter from a Birmingham Jail,≤ advocated a period of ≥self-purification≤ before the direct action that was to follow. This period of reflection helped to focus the participants on the upcoming violence. Jesus Christ, before he began to preach, had forty days in the desert in order to decide what it was he really wanted. Robert Frost, in his poem ≥Choose Something Like a Star,≤ recommends that we remove ourselves in order to think. The star ≥asks a little of us here/It asks of us a certain height.≤ He concludes the poem:

≥So when at times the mob is swayed

To carry praise or blame too far,

We may choose something like a star

To stay our minds on and be staid.≤

Everyone, successful or not, finds themselves ensnared within the crowd. To be successful, we need to remove ourselves from the noise, choose something to focus on and be ≥staid.≤

Nonetheless, the patriot need not be too hard on himself if he finds his beliefs swinging from one pole to the other. As Emerson noted, ≥A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.≤ (Self-Reliance, op. Cit.) We cannot expect the same thoughts and beliefs that guided our lives when we were 12 to be the same stars that steer our ships when we are older. Tim Lepore has had a wide variety of enthusiasms over the last twenty years, including Native American history, kayaking, marathon running, boxing, politics, flint-knapping, and falconry. He canπt be expected to keep the exact same worldview over the same twenty years anymore than he can be expected to keep the same pair of bluejeans. Time makes fools of all of us.

While his enthusiasms have varied, his passion has remained constant. Each task, whether professional or personal, has arisen from a vast appetite for life. In sating that appetite, we may dine from many, many different dishes. But, if we wish to be successful, we must be voracious.

Clear in his mind and passionate in his heart, the successful man speaks honestly and with art to an audience that knows not only his worth, but also the essential truth of his words. The know those words from their own hearts, but lacked the courage or conviction to speak them aloud. He may be dressed in work clothes, with a dirty face, and rough words, but the essential truth that he reveal in his heart opens other hearts. And he becomes a man in full.

Very few of us become successful; most of us prefer to be half-full. Failure is so much easier. It takes less energy, you donπt have to prepare as much, and you have a lot of company down in the throng. If youre a patriot, you have to be up there on stage, where your failure is so much more public. Back here, in the swelling crowd, your petty failures and your miserable successes are camouflaged by the millions of ones around you. We all suspend our judgment of your failures if you suspend your judgment of ours.

In the end, success requires personal risk. In the words of Bobby Kennedy, ≥Only those who dare to fail greatly, can achieve greatly. To be successful, you need to embrace failure. You need to accept and embrace the likelihood of your idiocy strutting itself before all of the silent judges. Bobby Kennnedy did that. He was born free to rich parents who sent him to the best schools. His wife and family not only loved him, but expected him to join the public arena. Later, as Attorney General in New York and as Attorney General for the United States, he frequently spoke out for what he felt in his heart was right. As a result, the throng felt it in their hearts as well. In the end, for his success, he was shot down. Many of his ideas live on, however, with the imprint of his words. A successful man, or a patriot, sends out a tiny ripple of hope. ≥and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.≤ Their success brings our own success and we move forward. (http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ekennedytributetorfk.html)