With Honors

Labels: Literature, Philosophy

I took this ethics comp this morning; I have the history comp to take on Monday. And, though nearly completely unrelated to the studying of said comps, I haven't had a good night's sleep in at least three weeks...even for me. Two unrelated aspects of my life which, unfortunately for the readers of DW, lead me to existential angst (insert an emoticon for "morose"). I say this is unfortunate for your reading pleasure because, alas, I am left to give you quotes from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. The first one you'll remember from that classic Joe Pesci and Brendan Fraser film, With Honors;

"You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self."

"Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.
I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and am not contain'd between my hat and boots"

"To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so. […] I and this mystery here we stand."

"These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.
This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
This the common air that bathes the globe."

"I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content."

*-All quotes from the poem "Song of Myself".