Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Wormholes, Space and Poetry.





A few months ago, there was this block buster film that came out about a post apocalyptic future where man is about to run out of time here on earth and they need to go out in space to find a new home as a solution. In it a group of scientists have to travel into a wormhole to get to the other side of the galaxy and explore the worlds that previous Astronauts have ventured out to. That film even got praise for having created a working Black Hole using complex mathematical algorithms. That movie is called Interstellar in case you did not know.

Anyway, why am I talking about interstellar? well particularly because of the poetic quotation used on the narration of the film and because one of the dialogue lines there caught my attention which I might talk some other time. The one i'm talking about is the line from the poem Do Not Go Gentle into the Goodnight by Dylan Thomas. 

Dylan Thomas talks about how life is like the light and night is death. And how different kinds of men have acted upon the encroaching night. The context of the poem in my understanding in general is that he wants us to fight death, that as much as we can we try to keep the light alive and not be like wild men who grieved too late. At the last line as well he encourages his father to do the same to fight death. And until recently, I had the time to catch up with a buddy from College. I learnt that two of my buddies have also lost their fathers over the years I chose to go incognito on them and wasn't there for the rituals.


Figuratively, I think that in the poem, the Light and the Night can also be applied to anything in general we face in life. Be it a struggle, an adversary, or challenges we might encounter.  I'm the kind of person that tends to give up when I couldn't overcome any struggles. Something happened along the way and I do not see myself where I saw myself a few years ago because I let life pass me by. I decided to even stop taking portraits or holding a camera. 

But.. regardless, Time is finite it does not stop. And while I may have wasted all those years and im in the process of relearning my trade (in the corporate sense retraining is a waste of money) nor do i not have any current plans on pursuing this field, this time I will not stop.

Before the night transitions I play my music and I tell my self that I should have not gone gently into the night, and that I should  rage, rage against the dying of the light 


---extra---





Do not go gentle into that good night, 
Old age should burn and rage at close of day; 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.


Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.


Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



And you, my father, there on the sad height, 
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. 
Do not go gentle into that good night. 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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