I wish I could write like this.

Billy Collins: The Great American Poem

If this were a novel,
it would begin with a character,
a man alone on a southbound train
or a young girl on a swing by a farmhouse.

And, as the pages turned, you would be told
that it was morning or the dead of night,
and I, the narrator, would describe
for you the miscellaneous clouds over the farmhouse

and what the man was wearing on the train
right down to his red tartan scarf,
and the hat he tossed onto the rack above his head,
as well as the cows sliding past his window.

Eventually - one can only read so fast -
you would learn either that the train was bearing
the man back to the place of his birth
or that he was headed into the vast unknown,

and you might just tolerate all of this
as you waited patiently for shots to ring out
in a ravine where the man was hiding
or for a tall, raven-haired woman to appear in a doorway.

But this a poem, not a novel,
and the only characters here are you and I,
alone in an imaginary room
which will disappear after a few more lines,

leaving us no time to point guns at one another
or toss all our clothes into a roaring fireplace.
I ask you: who needs the man on the train
and who cares what his black valise contains?

We have something better than all this turbulence
lurching toward some ruinous conclusion.
I mean the sound that we will hear
as soon as I stop writing and put down this pen.

I once heard someone compare it
to the sound of crickets in a field of wheat
or, more faintly, just the wind
over that field stirring things that we will never see.

Gettysburg

Great speech, great animation, great video.

(Gettysburg Address from Adam Gault on Vimeo.)

A few thoughts

I don't usually use this blog for personal reflections, but it's two in the morning, and why not? First of all, a song:

I'm beginning to realize the extent to which comfort plays a dominant role in my decision-making process. I still live with my parents, despite being a senior in university, because it's comfortable. I haven't pushed myself to make close friends at school, because that's uncomfortable. I stuck stubbornly to my plans of going straight to graduate school next fall because school is comfortable. I haven't committed to learning to how to drum, or how to play bass, because really - it's uncomfortable to stretch myself. And I certainly haven't chased any big dreams. It's natural to shy away from what's unfamiliar, but that impulse is tied to fear - fear of the unknown, fear of mistakes, fear of failure.

But fear is the mind killer, and a life that isn't lived boldly isn't much of a life. Radical, life-changing moments don't happen when you're sitting on your couch, they happen when you're out pushing yourself, and the limits of the possible. I'm not content with an average life.

"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary." - Cecil Beaton

"But the only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture past them into the impossible." - Arthur C. Clarke

"Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no whenever you don't want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you want to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out what you are doing here. Believe in kissing." - Eve Ensler

"Who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight... men of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. And in all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect." - Hebrews 11:33-35, 38-40.

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear (timidity), but of power and love and discipline." - 2 Timothy 1:7