Carpe Diem

My top five films are always changing, and why shouldn't they the world keeps putting them out and constant re-evaluation of one's top five lists is a necessary part of keeping up with the new. But no matter how many films they put out there the one film to remain steadfast even as I grow and learn is the Dead Poets Society. Does this resign me to the Robin Williams films are for girls catagory? Maybe, but it is a small price to pay to be able to shout YAWP at the top of my lungs and understand it is the very underpinnings of non-conformity.

For years I worried about being different, I worried that my over active mind and underactive filter system would forever make me a freak, it kind of did but here was a film that told me most men lived lives of quiet desperation and I'd rather be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

I always imagine Carpe Diem to be the sentiment of a generation, of course our newest group of young people are more likely to subscripe to phases like 'that's hot' or 'just do it'. Carpe Diem is a marketing exec's dream come true. A phrase that represents the underlying fear that we will run out of time to do the things we want. If people are afraid of death it can only be because they feel it will come too soon, but if we make the most of everyday surely we can keep that fear at bay, at least long enough to realize that death is only scary because we love life.

The Dead Poets Society is so sad because it represents the dispair of wanting to do something and being unable to do it, but in actuality are the people keeping us from our dreams mearly ourselves? There are so many barriers to being a free thinker and not small ones either, fear, life, isolation why would you want to think outside the box if everyone relatable is sitting inside. It is impossible not to worry what others think of us, ok it isn't, but it is damn hard and rejection is always a good reminder that putting all your hopes and dreams into one thing can lead to dissapointment.

I have come to believe that being strong comes from working through disapointment and from enjoying the bad as much as you can from worrying less about what people think of you and more what what you think of yourself. Strength comes from pushing forward when all you want to do is retreat. Carpe Diem, sieze the day, it doesn't mean that if you do it will end well, it just means you did it anyway. Or more elequently put 'to gather ye rosebuds while you may'.

Perhaps this is just the poet in me struggling to get free, the elequent rearrangement of words to give them more meaning. I refuse to live a life of quiet desperation and if the only way to do that is to be loud about it, then that is what I will do. People always talk about not wanting to put their thoughts into words and I understand why, as a race we are continuously looking to save face. If we leave our hopes and dreams in our heads no-one will know if they don't come true.

When Niel's father asks him what it is he feels it is the one chance he has to verbalize what he wants to do, and he backs down because in the end he doesn't feel like it could ever happen. If there was ever a message to learn from Mr Keating it was that anything is possible that you can't let anyone tell you that it's not.

O'Captin my Captin

Meryl