Rage, rage, against the dying of the light!

Dylan Thomas didn't heed his own advice, as he drank himself night after night into a stupor at the White Horse Tavern...mercilessly kicking his liver when it was down.  He died a young man, and while he went out of this world with a host of amazing work and was a celebrated artist, this skeptic thinks mainly of all of the waste in losing someone so amazing and so young before he could really finish his work. 

Regardless of the waste, the loss, and the sadness in losing someone that quite clearly had something to say, his last poem to his dying father became not only the Villanelle that really mattered but also an amazing life philosophy that poor Dylan didn't get to embrace himself, but I will.

I sat in the pub where Dylan drank himself to death, had a beer, and while looking out the window to the West Village street, pondered all the ways I have and haven't lived that philosophy.  I have lived safely, protecting my own heart above experience (shutting people out, walking away from love). I have lived recklessly, inviting death (motorcycles, fast cars, a host of bad decisions).  Neither one of those lifestyles work out in the long run, because you're either shielded from all experiences that matter, or too reckless to notice the opportunity.

In order to live fully and rage against the dying of the light, to embrace the fullness of life until there is no energy left in me, it seems that a shedding of the protections and safety of being walled-in have to come down.  I know that heartbreak is a natural side effect of vulnerability, and I wouldn't be a good skeptic without asking myself, "What the hell am I thinking?" So I ask myself...and I think that too many people now aren't raging against the dying of the light, be it loss of personal liberties, be it the loss of themselves, whatever it means for them to lose the light...too many people are walking into the darkness without a single yelp.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Skeptically Yours.