14 Days of Freedom: Day 12
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I know I quoted the last two lines of the poem; well, there's no law against it. Who said I had to quote the first two, anyway?
There is not a day when the news does not get worse and worse. There is not a day when our rights and liberties are eroded further. There is not a day when an even worse dystopia does not inch closer and closer. To me, any good news, any hope, is a change from the constant flood of cruelty and general atrocities. At times it feels like a small core of people are the only ones resisting, and at times it feels like we can't do anything, that we suffer under the weight of a system and that we cannot throw off our burdens. Often I feel that we are marching, slowly at first, than more and more quickly, to our doom. Not all of us are, that's true, but the great majority will quite passively submit to dystopia. It is very painful to see one's loved ones doing so.
Against all this, I keep thinking of the first line of the poem, and I keep attributing a meaning to it which it doesn't necessarily have: a quiet, fierce, unyielding determination to do right even in the face of the most overwhelming odds. Those who have it shall not go gentle: they shall keep fighting, they shall keep resisting. It gives me a little hope in a world where hope is too scarce.
Do not go gentle into that good night. Hold your head up high and make the decision to resist. Dystopia is not pretty whether it comes slowly or quickly, whether it is inevitable or preventable. You do not deserve dystopia. Your family and friends do not deserve dystopia. Nobody deserves dystopia, nobody. And as for being hopeless...do you really think it will help if you lie down and stop resisting? Do you really think it will make you better and happier? Maybe it works for some people - I don't know, I can't look into anyone's head - but it didn't work for me. I keep going not because I'm some blithe optimist who thinks everything is going to get better, but because I know if I don't, I haven't a hope of not making it worse.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I know I quoted the last two lines of the poem; well, there's no law against it. Who said I had to quote the first two, anyway?
There is not a day when the news does not get worse and worse. There is not a day when our rights and liberties are eroded further. There is not a day when an even worse dystopia does not inch closer and closer. To me, any good news, any hope, is a change from the constant flood of cruelty and general atrocities. At times it feels like a small core of people are the only ones resisting, and at times it feels like we can't do anything, that we suffer under the weight of a system and that we cannot throw off our burdens. Often I feel that we are marching, slowly at first, than more and more quickly, to our doom. Not all of us are, that's true, but the great majority will quite passively submit to dystopia. It is very painful to see one's loved ones doing so.
Against all this, I keep thinking of the first line of the poem, and I keep attributing a meaning to it which it doesn't necessarily have: a quiet, fierce, unyielding determination to do right even in the face of the most overwhelming odds. Those who have it shall not go gentle: they shall keep fighting, they shall keep resisting. It gives me a little hope in a world where hope is too scarce.
Do not go gentle into that good night. Hold your head up high and make the decision to resist. Dystopia is not pretty whether it comes slowly or quickly, whether it is inevitable or preventable. You do not deserve dystopia. Your family and friends do not deserve dystopia. Nobody deserves dystopia, nobody. And as for being hopeless...do you really think it will help if you lie down and stop resisting? Do you really think it will make you better and happier? Maybe it works for some people - I don't know, I can't look into anyone's head - but it didn't work for me. I keep going not because I'm some blithe optimist who thinks everything is going to get better, but because I know if I don't, I haven't a hope of not making it worse.
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