Alexandersmap

    Tag: Samuel Beckett

    • Not Everything Dies

      Dear heart, I shall not altogether die.
      Something of my elusive scattered spirit
      shall within the line’s diaphanous urn
      by Poetry be piously preserved.
      — Samuel Beckett, Non Omnis Moriar

      Samuel Beckett’s first stanza is a mic drop precisely because we feel the truth in it. Non Omnis Moriar—not everything dies—because we create ripples that reverberate and live beyond our fragile bodies. Our lifetime contribution in relationships and in our work has the opportunity to outlast us. What will it say?

      It might say something of our spirit, our willingness to share and grow and offer something of consequence in a world fraught with characters with no such inclinations. Perhaps it will be that one line, read at the right time, that turns history towards hope. Too bold? Shouldn’t we be? Our work is our time capsule to a future without us, no doubt, but it might also be a time capsule to a future us, older and wiser (perhaps) and looking for evidence that we lived a life of purpose.

      As this is published, we’re a few days into the New Year, when bold plans for a larger life take hold in our imagination. Creating anything meaningful daily amplifies and extends this feeling to the rest of the year and the rest of our lives. When we look at our lives as a creative work, we move beyond the timidity of everyday living and tap into our unrealized potential. We figuratively raise the bar on what we expect of ourselves, and seek to exceed it on our next attempt. In this way our contribution grows even as we grow.

      The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
      Answer.
      That you are here—that life exists and identity,
      That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
      — Walt Whitman, O Me! O Life!

      If your mind immediately leaps to the Dead Poet’s Society follow-up question, then we share the same cultural influences. And isn’t it an example of not everything of the poet dying? Robin Williams, as John Keating, asks his class, “What will your verse be?” We ought to let the question linger a few beats longer. And then get down to the business of answering it for ourselves. It follows that we should be earnest in this pursuit, for it will take a lifetime. And, just maybe, then some.

    • Represent Worthily

      “I learned not to fear infinity,
      The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,
      The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,
      The wheel turning away from itself,
      The sprawl of the wave,
      The on-coming water.”
      – Theodore Roethke. The Far Field

      In our dance with infinity it’s now a Thursday once again.  The days fly by.  Just as the weeks fly by.  Just as the months fly by.  Just as the years fly by.  And yet here we are, in the now, in this shining moment.  Nothing hammers that feeling home like being at home, day-after-day, doing the same thing over and over again.  This pandemic has highlighted for me – and maybe for you too – the dying of time in the white light of tomorrow.  The endless cycle of routine punctuated by another dawn.  What else is there but now?  Is tomorrow ours to wonder at?  There is only now.  And that brings to mind something I’d stored away long ago:

      “Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! Let us do something, while we have the chance….at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say?” – Samuel Beckett, Vladimir, Waiting for Godot

      I read Waiting for Godot in college, and found it repetitive and boring.  I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be reading such things.  I believe I felt the same way about Walden once too.  The restlessness of youth, or the immature mind…  no matter.  And yet I’ve returned to both recently.  I’ve re-read Walden three times since I was required to read it in college.  And Godot keeps coming to mind as we march along in this dance with the repetitive.  They say the mind never forgets anything, it just stores it away somewhere deep inside, dormant and untapped.  Today, after thousands of days, I’ve tapped Waiting for Godot and Vladimir stepped to the forefront with a few words of wisdom: There’s no time to be idle.  Represent us worthily, for you live in the white light of what was our tomorrow.  Don’t waste it.  And today, facing the windy cliffs of forever, that is my task.