A Piece of Poetry

One day I was sitting in a rocker comfortably reading Marcus Aurelius (this was in the days when I still read philosophy for personal enjoyment), when one line suddenly popped out at me.  I had to write a poem on it at once, which I did, and hear it is.  

The End of the Play

“For what shall be a complete drama is determined by him who was once the cause of its composition, and now of its dissolution: but thou art the cause of neither. Depart then satisfied, for he also who releases thee is satisfied.”

--The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

When Shakespeare cries out “Finis”

Who will say he doeth wrong?

Will Romeo plead for one last kiss,

Or Falstaff one last song?

When Rostand ties the curtain fast

Who will argue with his will?

Will Cyrano wave his nose and blast,

“I’ve three more men to kill"?

Shall love and laughter bind us

Close to the props and the stage?

Will sham-fight thrill and glory case us

In plastic armor’s cage?

Chekhov ends his one-act play,

And who will rise to his height?

Not justly so will the actor say,

“Playwright, the play’s not right.”

But short or long, the play’s the thing.

We the players must be tried.

Then play your part, the author watching,

May watch, well satisfied.

Don Quixote

George Bernard Shaw once said, “Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.” Shaw was wrong. Don Quixote was a gentleman by birth, long before he began to read. And as for the accusation that believing what he read made him mad, I deny that it ever had any such effect. He simply had an extraordinarily keen sense of chivalry and romance, and was unfortunately born in an age of people who were lacking in that faculty. That he saw giants where others saw only windmills, was not a sign of his supposed mental degeneracy, but of the rest of the world’s blindness. The giants were not imaginary. Can anyone fail to see in those windmills, a symbol of the growing power of science and technology, and fault Don Quixote for wanting to take them down a peg or two? Do we blame him because it happened that the windmills took him down instead? Don Quixote was one of the great people who are able to find adventure even in common experiences, but let us hope that he is not the last. To look at a broken down nag and say “Rocinante”—not the nag that you were, but what I will make of you now—what is that but to follow in the footsteps of the Highest? Let there be more such men.

My Blogging Debut Speech

Today begins a new epoch in my life.  I have become a blogger.  At this juncture, I am moved to analyze the causes leading to this revolution.  Why have I become a blogger?  I never even liked blogs before.  And I've never kept a journal for longer than three months.  Why have I suddenly decided to take on the burden of maintaining a blog?

Mainly because I have become a college student, I believe.  On the surface, it may appear that a college student would have even less time for blogging than anyone else.  Which is quite true.  But it isn't a matter of time.  It's a matter of what college does to your mind.  The intellectual strain must find relief somewhere--hence my blog.  After research papers and history exams have worn me thin, this blog shall be an escape into random musings.  What traces of brilliancy may appear here, will be G. K. Chesterton's, not mine. 

Which brings us to the question of Chesterton.  Why is my blog so heavily devoted to him?  I shall list several reasons, in the order in which they occur to me.

1.  Chesterton is the reason I survive in college.  He can be consulted beneficially on every subject.  He deserves a blog in his honor.
2.  Chesterton can provide interesting posts for me, when I am too lazy to come up with anything of my own.  (Yes, Prof. C., they will be properly referenced.)
3.  If I post Chesterton, I will actually enjoy reading my posts.
4.  If I didn't devote this blog to Chesterton, I would still end up bringing him into it anyway.  I might as well do it at the beginning officially.
5.  Because I want to.  And I shouldn't live with unfulfilled desires should I?

This concludes my presentation speech.  As my mouse arrow moves toward the "publish post" button, I say a bittersweet good-bye to my pre-blogger life, and embrace the new blogger life before me.