Good Night Robin Williams

I know that I should write today on the passing of a great entertainer, Robin Williams. However, I am almost too sad to write. I can’t believe that we have lost Mrs. Doubtfire, the magnificent English teacher, John Keating, an alien, Mork…the list goes on. At a time when the world needs humour more than ever, a great humorist has left us, adding to our pain.

The movie closest to my heart is “Dead Poet’s Society”, because I spent fifteen years of my life as an English teacher and poetry was my favourite genre. These lines from the film are so true –

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

“No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.”

He ends by saying –

Thoreau said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Don’t be resigned to that. Break out!”

There is an irony here. In the end no poem could save him and we have to wonder if he lived his life in quiet desperation and now he has broken free!!

The picture? A sunrise that is almost a sunset. Carpe Diem!