(Nov. 8, 2022 ● Oslin Pierrette)
There is no major community or society that promotes love, happiness, or a passionate spirit. It’s a blessing to come by any of those. It’s a blessing, sometimes a miracle to cross paths with someone like Mr. Keating. Someone to push you to believe in how you feel. To encourage the importance of spirit, to be who you naturally want to be. Express your innate feelings. Promote self confidence. And show life is meaningless without those aspects.
That was mainly the premise of the film. Taking these preparatory school boys, basically a factory line education, a boot camp. Taking these kids and preparing them to be an essential part of systematic lifestyle. How to excel and be at the top of the system. Whatever that means. The problem with this way of life is that it is void of life. No care for how these boys feel. No care to know what they want to do with their lives, like they don’t own themselves, like they don’t own their decisions. They have to comply and make sure to excel in the systematic society. Making your family and the preparatory look good. Doesn’t matter if you despise it, don’t want to do it, as long as you excel, that’s all that matters to your community and “loved ones”. If this isn’t the path you want to take in life, it doesn’t matter, you have to resign from life and just comply, unless you risk being rejected and losing the validation that so many cherish.
“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived.”
The club ‘Dead Poet Society’ was about seeking life. Doing things that represented true intimations of life and real meaning. A safe space of expression, no matter how they came, they were free to express. Find love, find passion, find your natural personality and allowing that to breathe. Breathe real breaths of life. Once you come in contact with that, you realize that these are the true meanings of life. Whatever their preparatory or even what society is trying to conform them to is meaningless.
“Own your voice. The longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said most men lead lives of quiet desperation. Don’t be resigned to that break out.”
This was the gist of Mr. Keating’s class. He turned historical literature class into a creative writing class. Reading the works of “realists” who deny hope, and promote safe conformity, are demoralizing to the spirit. So rip those pages out, rip out those sentiments, and trash those values, because we’re gonna live. Produce real life. Like with Todd Anderson’s character, you can tell he wants, most people want to live, but it’s scary. For some reason, everyone isn’t gifted the ability to publicly express, like extroverts. When many introverts attempt to publicly express, there’s always this performance anxiety that makes them a shell of themselves, quiet their voice, their spirit. Dimming their own life, and just going along with wherever life takes them. A recipe for despair. Living life in quiet desperation. That’s why it’s amazing to cross paths with someone like Mr. Keating, who brought him in the middle of the class, and broke him out of his shell. By making him chaotically express. Making him comfortable with expressing publicly, comfortable with the idea of showing himself, being vulnerable, and sharing his feelings. Guiding and teaching these kids how to actually live, live a life with real intimations of meaning. Nothing better you can ask for.
Then with someone like Neil Perry, who knows what his heart wants. To act, but his father doesn’t approve. His father wants him to conform and get good grades to excel. To be something his father would be proud of. But what his father wants is crushing his soul. So he rejects that, and goes for what he wants, and that’s acting. Even after the ultimatum given by his father, he still goes for his heart, his love, and does the play. Getting caught by his father, who deeply disapproves and takes him out of the school. Explaining to his son that he will go to military school, then Harvard, and then become a doctor. Absolutely disgusting to craft a world you want for your child, making your child an indentured servant. Like you own their decisions, and life well into their adult life, dictating a majority of their life. Not allowing Neil to breathe, and taking away the love of his life, his passion and absolute love to act. And taking that away is taking his soul away, and what’s living if you have no soul. Just a grueling dreadful dead man walking. You would have to carry the weight of your dreadful living every second of everyday, that turns into years. Knowing you had to give up the love of your life. Resigning from your chance to happiness. Which led Neil to his ultimate demise of taking his own life. To him there was no point left to live, his father killed him basically.
A beautiful film
(You can see more about topics like this here) https://ossyp.com/the-pandemic-of-despair-why-is-it-that-no-major-community-promote-love-happiness-and-a-passionate-spirit/