"Do not go gently into that good night" became one of my mottos as a young person and the poem was reintroduced to me in Michelle Pfeiffer's 1995 movie, Dangerous Minds, when, as a teacher in an inner city school, she used poetry to inspire her students.
"Do not go gently into that good night,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light"
Rage, rage against the dying of the light"
Those words came to me at the right moment of my life, at 24 years old, when I just decided to live the life I wanted - I had some idea how it should be - but I didn't know how to go about it.
Much like Robert Frost's line "I chose the road less traveled by", I was supposed to turn right (and everything was telling me to turn right), but I guess the Lord pointed me to the path on the left, and as they say, the rest is history.
I am already middle-aged now but Dylan Thomas' words continue to ring as strongly as when I was half this age. I guess now that I'm getting a little bit closer to my mortality, it even weighs more heavily, because now, the finish line is much closer than I would really want it to be.
I bought this book today in my favorite Book Sale shop and it's a biography of this esteemed poet. He's Welsh pala. Interesting! I hope I find the time lang to read it!
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