Invictus

Its been just a little while since my last post and I am back at it again. This is a bit unusual for me of late as I generally write only when I feel like. Lazy and unimaginative as I am, the 'feel like' feeling has to make a lot of effort to overpower me and force me to write. Actually, that's bullshit - I write almost every month here and most of it is gibberish, just that the first three sentences seemed to be flowing well.

Anyhow, I am writing this one hoping for two things. That:

1) this would be short

2) this would be sensible

...and I have a strong feeling that I might fail miserably on both counts.

I was just reading 'Invictus' by William Ernest Henley. For those of you who haven't read it as yet, here it is:

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

I am quite sure that given the kind of intellectually supercharged audience that my blog attracts, all of you who are reading this post, would have already read this poem and thought through it. I have read the whole poem quite a few times in my life and a significant proportion of the total number of times happened just before I started writing this post.

I really believe that this poem is outrageously amazing, despite the fact that I am obviously quite unintelligent and shallow to understand it any deeper than what it sounds. I wouldn't talk about the poem itself and what it means to me or according to me. But here is a serious suggestion - read it out aloud...really really loud...as if you are reciting it to impress for your life...as if you are acting it out on stage to please for your life...you know what I mean.

I just feel that this poem is so strong that while you read it out aloud, it makes you real. It shouts back at you aloud, telling you what you really want and how bad you want it. I don't know and can't be sure if it would work for you, it certainly didn't work for me the way I described it. Not because what I said above is bullshit but because I was so obsessed by the possibility of writing about it, that I missed the moment :-)

PS: The last two lines of this poem are certainly the strongest set of words that I have ever read or heard in my life. If you disagree or have any other suggestions, do leave a comment.