An Excerpt from T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear, prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow

For thine is the kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the shadow

For thine is the kingdom

For thine is
Life is
For thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper.

We all want to make a difference in life. We all want to do something that everyone would remember us for; maybe something like…building a park for the disabled or a home for the homeless. However, did you ever think of the little people? People who don’t need a home, or a park? Everyday people? Some of these people, you may have helped in the past in one way or another. Maybe someone, you gave your few 5 peso coins to for lunch? Or someone who you just smiled at because he/she seemed like she was alone?

There is no real way of telling these things. And it is useless to go out with a bang. Because, if you do…after a couple of years, no one will really remember you. Or those few people that did remember you, remember you for the wrong reasons. I personally would prefer the people to remember me for the things that really meant something, like a street kid I bought all the flowers from for her to finally be able to get out of the rain and go home. Or the sick man, sitting outside Mc Donald’s asking for a few pesos.

I want those people to remember me, for being someone who showed them love, just for a brief moment when they felt alone in the world. I don’t want to go out in a bang. I just want to be remembered. How about you?

Dang...

It’s been a while since I posted something here. Well, I know I’ve been posting some..."meaningful" stuff in the past...and well I just kinda lost inspiration somehow. Anyway…well, here I am...and for the first time, I’m going to write about what happened to me today. I woke up at..9 in the morning, i just wanted to stay in bed and sleep. i bet all of you felt this before :D and well, in the process, skipped chem lab. I don’t...but apparently, after coming home from eastwood, my parents found out. i gave them the excuse na "free cut" but...alas now, they don’t believe me. could there be a mole, a snitch in my chem class? I don’t know.

Well, off the topic, i got a new book today. its pretty cool. "Collected Poems 1909-1962" by T.S. Eliot. Well, I wanted this book for a long long time na...but I finally got a reason to buy it... its for this damn paper we have in lit.

Here’s a poem from the book...


"Eyes That Last I Saw in Tears"
By T.S. Eliot

Eyes that i last saw in tears
Through division
Here in death's dream kingdom
The golden vision reappears
I see the eyes but not the tears
This is my affliction

This is my affliction
Eyes I shall not see again
Eyes of decision
Eyes I shall not see unless
At the door of death's other kingdom
Where, as in this,
The eyes outlast a little whistle
A little while, outlast the tears
And hold us in derision.

There are some things that we will not see for a long long time. A's in the report card, happy smiles from kids...even a loved one that had gone into a better place. These people we will not be able to see...anymore. However, even through death, we will still have our memories that will help us remember them in all of this. And hopefully, those memories, better good than ill, help us pass through this maze called life day after day. Even though they do die, they still live in our memories, when we relive the happy/sad moments we had with them.
It doesn’t matter if we do something memorable when we live, like build a hospital etc. but, what matters most are the memories that we leave with our friends, family, acquaintances when we leave this place called earth.