Carpe diem or whatever

I have never been a huge Emily Dickinson fan. It is not that I don’t like her work—I generally do—but because I just have not read a lot of her poems. I have a faint memory of reading “Because I could not stop for Death—” in one of my high school classes, but we talked about it pretty briefly then moved on to something else. 

That being said, I really enjoyed reading the poem again. Dickinson describes Death as kind and patient, which is not what people might typically think. Yet there is also this sense of deception on Death’s part by the last stanza. The speaker did not necessarily understand that the horses driving them were headed toward eternity in death. Also, the speaker was not prepared for this journey, since she was wearing the wrong clothes (a dress of gossamer). Still, I don’t think the speaker entirely resents this. She may not have wanted to die, but she also knows death is a fact of life no one is capable of changing. The reader needs to remember that life is fleeting. We shouldn’t waste it.

Ferris Bueller got it when he said “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Michael from The Good Place knew what he was saying when he said “Every human is a little bit sad all the time, because you know you’re going to die. But that knowledge is what gives life meaning.”

And the band Kings of Leon didn’t mistakingly sing the lyrics “Take the time to waste a moment.” (A quick aside, coincidences are extremely weird. As I am writing this post I have music playing on shuffle, and this very song started playing. I can’t make this up. Its so great when these things work out like this! Now I feel like Dr. Primrose at the end of The Vicar of Wakefield.)

I think its good we have all these reminders to savor life while we are living, because we are all headed toward that same inevitably. Dickinson in particular achieves this in such a beautiful poem. Life is fleeting, we need to live while we can. Seize the day and all that. 




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