Dying
I'm doing this poetry analysis on Percy Shelley's sonnet Ozymandias. If you know the work, then you'll recognize that the brevity of human existence is a theme undeniably touched on in the piece. Its a common motif in art. Everyone dies.

But in the books I read, the movies I watch, their lives are made immortal through their works. I watched the Matrix this weekend, and as disappointing as I found the second and third installments Neo will continue forever, in or outside of the source code, or whatever techno-fantasy justification exists for his perpetuated existence. Because he was a bad-ass who, despite the ability to do basically whatever the fuck he wanted, only manifested his power in the ability to fly, master martial arts, and stop bullets. Not a creative messiah, but a god in his own world.

And isn't that the way of them all? Even nonfictional accounts are a testimony to the subject, and even if they die they are encapsulated forever and shelved in a library near you.

They say you're the hero of your own story. And often enough the hero doesn't die, and in that way he lives doubly. The story ends, he fells Voldemort, destroys the Ring, survives Tarmon Gaidon, gets the Bluth Company out of trouble, WHATEVER. And then he's not only locked away for the rest of eternity, but their fictitious lives have years left to wile away on imagined future greatness, or to simply enjoy.

All of this aimless, unfocused musing is just a response to breakfast today. The Glee Club leads the singing of the last verse of the Alma Mater when a graduate of West Point is killed in action. And that's gonna make you think. The odds are tremendously in your favor. This is the first that has died this school year, which is terrific right? But nevertheless, just by taking the oath you accept that you're gambling your life. Sure, I might be more likely to die in a car accident or have a sixteen ton anvil fall on my head, but these are accidents and Acts of Acme, and are negligible risks that we are forced to take by living.

Becoming a 'professional warrior' just invites death to be a part of your life.

Which made me think about how unimmortal 1LT Daren Hidalgo is. We sang him a song, and for a moment his name resonated in the entire Corps, but its a brief moment really. Sure, he's got friends and family that will remember him longer, but it will dull and fade, only to be recalled achingly at particular moments. And they'll die, the only thing really keeping him from ultimate death. And then he'll really be dead. Totally, irrevocably dead after a score and some change of life. He went to school for almost his whole life, and in less than two years out of the gate he was killed. He Was Born, Then He Was Taught, Then He Fought, Then He Died.

Its amazing how our lives are simplified without an account of them. Let's face it, Harry Potter's story was shorter, but far more celebrated because seven well-crafted books made him a cash cow, a religious debate, and a hero. William Wallace was a nobody to much of the world until Mel Gibson made the movie, and now his epic is a standard for young men movie watchers.

Then I started wondering if being remembered matters at all. Why am I so obsessed with it? Well, its probably because I'm afraid of dying. Very few people at my age aren't, I reckon. I really hope 1LT Hidalgo was. Ready to die that is. In the sense that he knew his purpose, and when he was shuffled off the mortal coil he had reservations somewhere.

And I'm reading this book called The Name of the Wind. I want to finish it. Because someday (hell or highwater) I'm going to pen my own book. Maybe that'll be my legacy.

Whoa, maybe that's what we need. Do we need a legacy? Do we need children, or stories, or deeds, or something external to immortalize us? Something we did/made with our own hands?

Legacy. Interesting.

Ozymandias
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

3 comments | say something