|
| This poem is a huge source of inpiration, it speaks to the ability to sieze the day regardless of age or destination:
Ulysses
by Alfred Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vest the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all to little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle-
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me-
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads- you and I are old;
Old age had yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
[1842] | | |
| Well I'm back in civilization-or at least Nairobi-having survived one of the most incredible experiences of my young life. We saw lions, zebra, hippo, vervets, hyenas, heard leopards, and yes elephants. In fact out camp was in danger of pachyderm trampling-how cool is that?! And yes I just used a question-exclamation combo, give me a break I've been living in a tent for a month and a half.
Oh yeah, then there's the fossils. Extinct hippo, croc, and rhino literally falling out of the sand and artifacts-tools used by my Great^576 Uncle Ug used to butcher his zebra dinner 2.1 million years ago while the hyena and saber tooth cats lurked in the shadows, waiting for their shot either at the carcass or Ug. I can't wait to discover the rest of his story.
I just realized what a monumental task I have. There's no way I can sum up the last six weeks in this one entry, and I just keep thinking of more anecdotes I need to bore ya'll with. Know that have have taken north of a thousand picture (don't worry, I'll edit and there's a lot of duplicates) have filled two journals with thunks, stories and observations and my pack with Samburu spears, Turkana wrist knives, Dasannech braclets and El Molo necklaces.
The group has been a fantastic, eclectic bunch-perfect traveling companions for venturing into the most remote corners of the globe on the Unimog-a machine more monster then metal which can haul just about anything including fourteen students over anything in its path- or in Land Rovers. Not those sparkly West Chester Varieties whose tires have never kissed anything more rugged then 75 at rush hour, but four wheeling technical vehicles content to ford any water source, or cross the Illeret desert.
Anyway, my time is running short. I'll try to keep in touch over the next few weeks but until then I hope everyone's summer is rolling by exquisitely, and I can't wait to hear your wonderful stories when I return. | | |
| I'm at the heathrow airport in London preparing myself for an adventure. Here goes nothing. Wish me luck. | | |
| Tonight I say good-bye to dear old Lincoln tower (or newly renevated Lincoln Tower, but that's beside the point), good-bye to dorm life in general as I go out for my last floor dinner. Wow, this just may make me all dewy eyed. But then I realize I have a lot of crap to shove in my car, and not a lot of time to do it and reality comes crashing in. Hopefully I'll get the chance to post my intinerary tomorrow so anyone who cares can figure out where the heck I went (or Where in the World...wait, that sounds like a great idea for a game show...yeah, and I'll have an a cappella group run in randomly, and poorly animated graphics of bandits taking the Eiffle Tower...It's brilliant!). I'll also post stuff here if I get near a computer, but it looks like I'll be in the boonies of Kenya for most of the next two months so we'll see how that all works out. If I didn't get a chance to personally wish you a wonderful summer, I hope it brings you all kinds of relaxation and smiles. | | |
| So much left to cram into one small brain...
My one solace is in one week I will be getting off a plane in Nairobi, Kenya, and Calculus will be thousands of miles to the Northeast, exactly where it should stay. | | |
|
