One Single Impression: Need

From July 21, 2011

Follow your dreams,
The neighbor says.

Do all you can
And leave it alone,
And it will happen
In its own time,
Not yours.

Says the neighbor,

And I hear:

Dreaming is not the art of hunger,
Of making a virtue of lacking what you need,
A cold, righteous making do with what is.

Dreaming is writing love letters
To every breath in every moment;

It is opening the door
To the new day,

Confident
That what is right there on the other side
Is exactly what you need.

Love it well,
And your dreams will find you.

Note:  Often I turn to the Online Etymology Dictionary for some elucidation on an OSI prompt.  The history of a word is a beautiful thing, a history of thought and feeling and language.  I love that.  This week was no help, though. Too much to choose from!  Have a look:

need (n.)

O.E. nied (W.Saxon), ned (Mercian) "necessity, compulsion, duty," originally "violence, force," from P.Gmc. *nauthis (cf. O.N. nauðr, O.Fris. ned, M.Du. nood, Ger. Not, Goth. nauþs "need"), probably cognate with O.Pruss. nautin "need," and perhaps with O.C.S. nazda, Rus. nuzda, Pol. nedza "misery, distress," from PIE *nau- "death, to be exhausted." The more common O.E. word for "need, necessity, want" was ðearf, but they were connected via a notion of "trouble, pain," and the two formed a compound, niedðearf "need, necessity, compulsion, thing needed." Nied also may have been influenced by O.E. neod "desire, longing," which often was spelled the same. Common in O.E. compounds, e.g. niedfaru "compulsory journey," a euphemism for "death;" niedhæmed "rape," the second element being an O.E. word meaning "sexual intercourse;" niedling "slave." Meaning "extreme poverty, destitution" is from c.1200. The verb is O.E. neodian "be necessary," from the noun. Related: Needed; needing. The adj. phrase need-to-know is attested from 1954.

One Single Impression