Now my class, you will learn to think for
yourselves again.
You will learn to savour words and language.
No matter what anybody tells you, words and
ideas can change the world.
We don't read and write poetry because its
cute.
We read and write poetry because we are members
of the human race.
And the human race is filled with passion.
Medicine, law, business, engineering these
are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain
life.
But poetry, beauty, romance, love.
These are what we stay alive for.
To quote from Whitman: " O me!
O life!
Of the questions of these recurring; of the
endless trains of the faithless.
Of cities filled with the foolish; 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.What
will your verse be?
You must strive to find your own voice.
Because the longer you wait to begin, the
less likely you are to find it at all.
Thoreau said "most men lead lives of quiet
desperation."
Don't be resigned to that.
Break out.
Conformity.
The difficulty in maintaining your own believes
in the face of others.
For those of you, I see the look in your eyes
like "I would've walked differently."
Well ask yourselves why you were clapping.
We all have a great need for acceptance.
But you must trust that your beliefs are unique,
are your own.
Even though other may think them off or unpopular.
Even though the herd may go "that's bad."
Robert Frost said "two roads diverged in a
wood and I, I took the one less travelled
by.
And that has made all the difference."
if I asked you about art, you'd probably give
me the skinny on every art book ever written.
Michelangelo, you know a lot about him.
Life's work, political aspirations, him and
the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works,
right?
But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells
like in the Sistine Chapel.
You've never actually stood there and looked
up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that.
If I ask you about women, you'd probably give
me a syllabus about your personal favorites.
You may have even been laid a few times.
But you can't tell me what it feels like to
wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy.
And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably
throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more
unto the breach dear friends."
But you've never been near one.
You've never held your best friend's head
in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath
looking to you for help.
I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote
me a sonnet.
But you've never looked at a woman and been
totally vulnerable.
Known someone that could level you with her
eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth
just for you.
Who could rescue you from the depths of hell.
And you wouldn't know what it's like to be
her angel, to have that love for her, be there
forever, through anything, through cancer.
And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting
up in the hospital room for two months, holding
her hand, because the doctors could see in
your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours"
don't apply to you.
You don't know about real loss, 'cause it
only occurs when you've loved something more
than you love yourself.
And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody
that much.
