Transcendental

In English class we are studying romanticism and transcendentalism and reading things like Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman, among others. Let me just tell you that almost NOTHING gets me more excited. I am not kidding. I am sitting in the back of the room, a little flushed, my breathing getting heavy....okay, but seriously. Every kid in that class is moaning and groaning, whining, complaining, being overly dramatic about how incredibly BORING this shit is, and I can hardly contain myself. I mean, come on! Thoreau was the ultimate, non-conforming, vegetarian, nature loving bad boy. He was thrown in jail for not paying taxes he didn't believe in, and wrote a book called "Civil Disobedience." Everyone looked at him like he was a nut-job and now he is studied in schools.

Walt Whitman....ah, Uncle Walt. In my brief stint at college I wrote a paper on "Song of Myself." I have never read the entire "Leaves of Grass," but I have read a lot of it. His prose, his words, his style all make my heart flutter and stir my soul.

Naturally, all of this talk reminded me of how I got into these writers and other poets in the first place. When I was 14 I saw the movie Dead Poets Society. I know that you are totally expecting this, but it inspired me and stirred me all up inside. People gathering together to read poetry, young minds learning about how to think, see and feel things in a different way, how to live life to the fullest. I get goosebumps when I think of it. One time in high school I went into the woods with a couple of close friends and we climbed inside a cave, lit some candles, played some music and read poetry out loud to each other. I will tell you all about it another time.

Individualism. Self-expression. Living life to the fullest, living deep and hard, feeling and seeing the beautiful, the ugly, the mundane. Whatever. Experiencing every second with full appreciation. Living, not just existing. If everyone does it one way, try it another. Look around. Question everything. Write it down. Sing a song of yourself, and sing it loudly so everyone can hear, even if they find it annoying. Sound your barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

This is what this movie did for me. And now it can be be found in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. *Sighs*

"We didn't just read poetry, we let it drip from our tongues, like honey."
John Keating, DPS