Mindful College Writing

October 12, 2017

Old Age Dissatisfaction & Peace

As children we are bold in our directness, playing with life as prosperity seeps out of our chest and nature becomes of us, most organic honey our minds are. Children are guardians of green. They value its wisdom by flying creative and attentive to its breeze, most natural lavender our hearts are. In adolescence the carefree is replaced by insecurity and competition. Either we learn self-acceptance as stamina or drop off into the pool of adult shame and self-judgment.

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas and I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth communicate steps to old age dissatisfaction and a journey through peace. In Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night the narrator rages at the dying of light (death) because there was no enlightened moment of empowered peace. For example, “The frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,” reveals an unhappy man who introspects on the importance of wholeheartedly pursuing life and the discontent from allowing low self esteem (frail deeds) to prevent one from self expression, such as dancing childlike by the bay. “Wild men who caught and sung the sun in flight/and learn too late they grieved it on its way out,” provides a message. Moments pass quickly and require full presence or they blur into others and are never thoroughly seen or felt. And finally, “…words had forked no lightning,” expresses the blunt reality of speech having no passion or depth and genius not actualized.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by Wordsworth, the title creates this sad image yet the poem speaks of euphoric peace from simplicity. For example, “Wandering Lonely” doesn’t imply depression. The narrator is deciding to wander life alone to discover deeper meanings for life beyond ideology constrictions. “Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,” by Thomas and “Fluttering and dancing in the breeze…Along the margin of a bay,” by Wordsworth have similar imagery yet one narrator is self-constricted by fears and the other is self-liberated through nature. “In pensive mood…flash upon the inward eye/which is the bliss of solitude…then my heart with pleasure fills,” the narrator is providing a process for healing negative thought and returning to peace. The inward eye which is contemplation and solitude seen as empty, blank and still are the tools to gratitude that is awe struck simply by “dances with daffodils.”

Don’t Go Gentle into That Good Night, the narrator lives an incomplete life and I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, the narrator lives a complete life. The difference between these two poems is one expresses life ruled by fear and the other closeness to nature. The comparison provides a larger message. There is old age regret from living out of touch with self and great enlightenment from being fully here now, appreciating this moment.