| WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer; | |
| When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; | |
| When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; | |
| When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, | |
| How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; | 5 |
| Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself, | |
| In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, | |
| Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. In life, people search for contentment. What fuels their twisting, turning gears, what posts bright smiles on otherwise bleak face, what stirs deeply and wordlessly, what radiates warmth throughout body. Some search for such feelings in their work, thoughtless dedication to knowledge and advancement. Others find serenity in the quiet moments alone, with blank face and mind, just as the speaker above. The charts and diagrams glaze over his eyes, the stats and figures bogging uninterested mind. But when he looks up into the night sky, silent, surrounding, all is right, in that single, fleeting moment. The only thing one can hope for is to cherish these timeless moments, and try to make the feeling last. |
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Sunday, March 8, 2015
“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Is it not the most curious thing, that while Shakespeare and I share the same language, it sounds as if we speak different tongues entirely? It's as if the English language had its hay-day many hundreds of years ago, and today we babble the skeleton, the outline, of a once beautiful and archaic language. Even those most well versed in the English language could not hope to speak a thread of Shakespearean language without intense, focused thought. Each word, each pause, used to hold as much meaning as the statement itself, and today, we choose the shortest, the tersest words, to convey our point in the most basic, understandable way possible. It's quite a sad sight to watch such a regal language tumble into muck and disunity, especially so in the texting age.
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Is it not the most curious thing, that while Shakespeare and I share the same language, it sounds as if we speak different tongues entirely? It's as if the English language had its hay-day many hundreds of years ago, and today we babble the skeleton, the outline, of a once beautiful and archaic language. Even those most well versed in the English language could not hope to speak a thread of Shakespearean language without intense, focused thought. Each word, each pause, used to hold as much meaning as the statement itself, and today, we choose the shortest, the tersest words, to convey our point in the most basic, understandable way possible. It's quite a sad sight to watch such a regal language tumble into muck and disunity, especially so in the texting age.
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