So Live!

When I taught American Literature to Juniors in high school, I always taught the poem “Thanatopsis” by William Cullen Bryant.  He was one of our great Romantic poets who often wrote about nature.  “Thanatopsis” is probably his most well known poem and certainly my favorite.  Basically, the poem is about death from the perspective of nature.  We all live, die, and return to the earth.  Whether king or peasant, the roots of trees will pierce our flesh and worms digest us.  Sounds depressing and gross right?

Well, there is more to it than that.  He ends with the following lines:

                        So live, that when thy summons comes to join

                        The innumerable caravan which moves

                        To that mysterious realm where each shall take

                        His chamber in the silent halls of death,

                        Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

                        Scourged by his dungeon; but, sustain'd and soothed

                        By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,

                        Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

                       About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

At the end, he concludes (very loosely) that if we are all bound for the same destiny, we have nothing to fear.  And therefore, we should approach death “sustain’d and soothed” rather than with dread.

And that’s all fine and good.  Obviously, as a Christian, I have fairly different ideas about the afterlife.  And my beliefs do allow me to approach death without fear.  But death isn’t actually the point I’m trying to make at all.  Seriously…stay with me.

My favorite part of the whole piece is the two little words that start the conclusion, “So live”.  I don’t think the comma after the words is accidental.  We poets use our commas and periods very carefully.  We only place them where we want a pause, a break.  And much of the time, we want our reader to pause for a reason.  I typically pause when I want to make a point.  Or when I want you to really think.

I think the entire message of this poem about death is not death at all.  It’s life!  So LIVE, he says.

Too much of the time, we spend our lives not truly living, but sort of strolling through in a trance.  Do you ever drive home from work, and when you get there, wonder how you did because you don’t remember the trip?  THAT’S what I’m talking about.

I do not want to go through life wondering how I got there.  Wherever “there” is.  I don’t want to get to the end and fear.  I don’t want to get to the end and regret.  I don't want to get to the end and wonder how I got there.  I want to truly be present in my own life.

I was talking to a friend this weekend about how much we enjoy doing “nothing”.  I spend a LOT of time doing “nothing”.  Games, Facebook, watching television, can all be “nothing”.  Not necessarily, but they can. 

Recently I’ve sort of unplugged.  I haven’t played WoW in weeks.  The last two weekends I haven’t watched more than a few hours of television.  I’ve cleaned, listened to music, spent time with Lola, watched softball, cooked for friends, read, started writing more seriously, connected with some new people…to name just a few things.

I’m sure that I’ll keep watching television and playing computer games.  I’ll read books and wile away hours on Facebook.  But, I also want to make sure I’m really present in my own life. 

I want to “So live,”…