"The powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse."
What do I want to contribute? What do I want to do? October has been a busy, crazy month full of weddings, college visits, and make-up quizzes/tests/labs, so when I got the notification about the Goal Post, my mind spun. I had no clue of what to do. So I did what any normal, sane highschooler would do: I moved on to a different assignment. While finding a poem for my English class, I came upon one of my favorite poems of all time, yet it was a poem I didn't know by name. "O Me! O Life" is a piece written by Walt Whitman, and it features in the movie Dead Poets Society, a movie I have watched more times than I can count. The movie embodies everything that humanity should stand for and the purity of human compassion and community; it deals with everything from educational methods to the struggles of loving the written word. Within the movie, Robin Williams plays a teacher with an unconventional teaching style: he makes the students march around in a square, he tells them to rip out pages in their textbooks, and he encourages them to let out a barbaric "YAWWW" when they are frustrated or feel that they have reached an impasse in their life. And in the end, the movie will make you laugh till your stomach hurts and cry your heart out, and I believe it is truly one of the best movies ever made. So much of this film can be related to the struggles that we as independent research students face. In one scene in the movie, Robin Williams recites part of the "O Me! O Life!" poem in an attempt to convince the students to follow their passions and find a way to always see happiness in the darkest of situations. Here is the poem in its entirety:
"Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse."
What we all need to remember in our Emc2 projects is that our purpose is to tell a story, to contribute our verse to the world. At some points, we may feel that the walls are closing in (like that scene from Star Wars with the trash compactor), or that we are surrounded by "cities filled with the foolish", but we cannot let it drag us down. We cannot drown in our own reproaching of how we could've done better. We should instead swim fiercely to the top and think of how we can improve in the future, what we can do better next time. Recently, I learned that one of the things I need to work on is how to evaluate myself fairly. I see fault in all of my own work, and that leads to a lack of confidence, which leads to unfulfilled potential. Like in the poem, I self-doubt to the point of losing motivation for fear of failing. But in a research project like this, nothing we can do is ever really wrong; all the steps we take lead us to a destination in the end, a destination that will be wonderful and treasured for years to come. We chose our topics because we are passionate about them and believe that we can make the world a better place. All of us believe that through our projects, we can understand more about ourselves and our world, that our lives and identities can still exist in this chaotic modern play.
I feel that this poem could also relate to the immigration experience. In the first line, they have so many questions, so many obstacles in their way: "why isn't this process fair, why can't I get in, why don't I deserve this?". The lines to even get a visa are endless, filled with people who have been waiting over 20 years to get noticed, and once one is obtained, they are placed in a new city full of people who probably don't understand them, whether due to language or cultural boundaries. The "empty and useless years of the rest" is all of those years spent waiting for that letter or notice that you have been considered for LPR status (a green card), and sometimes, you are never, ever going to be considered. If anyone's hope or faith can last that long, then I commend them; I certainly do not have that courage or perseverance. The "eyes that vainly crave the light" are the eyes that wish to escape from their old home and seek to be in America, the place full of promised hope. The "struggle ever renew'd" is the constant emotional split between America and the home country; many immigrants leave family behind and don't see them for years. There is also the process of many, many years from being an LPR to being a naturalized citizen that could seem like a never-ending struggle. The "poor results" and the "plodding, sordid crowds I see around me" are those who could not make it. They are the ones who are don't have enough education, don't have an important enough job, don't have enough money, don't have the right connections, don't fit into the right age bracket, and don't want to leave anyone behind. So the immigrants ask "what is the point of all of this if I probably will be ignored and forgotten, lost in this cruel world?", and the reply is that the point is to have a simple chance at a better life and renewed identity. A chance to contribute your verse, your message to the world. In America, immigrants can share their experiences in hopes of bringing awareness to this almost-eternal process; if enough people raise their voices and write their lines, the powerful play might just be changed.
