To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

"Ulysses," the poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson, has dramatically influenced my life since I first encountered it in high school. The tale of the epic hero made so familiar by both Homer and Dante is brought to vivid emotional life by Tennyson's examination of Ulysses' spirit of exploration, discovery, and unwavering will. Ulysses' unrelenting intellectual curiosity causes him to reject a settled life and constantly travel the world in search of new experiences, to "drink life to the lees . . . always roaming with a hungry heart" making Ulysses "a part of all that [he has] met." Most striking is Ulysses ardent desire to never stop learning more: "To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought."

Even as Ulysses and his crew enter their old age, they see perceive no boundary to their quest for discovery. For they represent "that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven . . . Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will." Tennyson ends with the indelible line that has floated into my mind countless times since I first read "Ulysses" so many years ago: "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." This is a trenchant motto for life which I have always endeavored to live.

Everything that I have achieved is the direct result of my indomitable will, passion for achievement, drive to keep moving forward, and unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Ulysses taught me the meaning of a heroic life: striving, seeking, finding, and never yielding. The spirit of these words has been absorbed in all aspects of my life. Read (or re-read) this brilliant work below:


It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

I'm (not) Disabled!

One of my all time favorite shows is The "IT Crowd" and one of its best-ever episodes contains the following scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDZzl9AyXeg

A few weeks back I was on a long cross-country flight. By the time I got off, I needed some "IPhone time" in the nearest bathroom quite badly. This particular airport bathroom was unusually small with only three stalls and a single urinal. Everything was in use except for the disabled stall. My need for relief was high, and having used the disabled stall in similar situations before, I simply went for it. I didn't think too much of it, though, admittedly Roy's "I'm disabled!" did pass through my mind for a moment. A few minutes went by and I was well on my way to alleviating my distress when, all of a sudden, wheelchair wheels rolled up under the stall door. There was a knock, and I then heard the following exchange:

A guy: I think someone's in there.
Wheelchair Guy: Yeah. I don't think he's disabled, though.

It took so much self-control not to yell out "I'm disabled...legs!" There was nothing I could do, I was at a point of no return on this adventure. I could only hope that he left and went to one of the 6,000 other bathrooms in this major international airport. Instead, he rolled his way into the non-disabled stall next to mine and attempted to use it with apparent great difficulty. Somewhat horrified, I finished, I washed my hands and got the hell out of there and didn't look back. Time to get the rental car.