Elder A. Theodore Tuttle, Part One: William Wordsworth and the Unexpected Lesson of Dead Poets Society

 For Part Two, Part Three, or Part Four, click on that link!

Today's quote hit a little bit harder than some for me. 

On this day, I was frantically going about my day, trying to squeeze as much as I could into 24 hours and wishing I could have more, when I found this quote in "The Things That Matter Most", by Elder A. Theodore Tuttle:

The Quote

“The world is too much with us: late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”

 

Too fast. Moving too fast. Missing the things in life that are important.

I definitely have to remember to put on the brakes a lot of the time and not get so impatient. I don't know where I got this inclination, but I know I've felt it most of my life. 

You know what? I bet it came from the movie "Dead Poets Society".

 

That movie and Robin's powerful performance in it supercharged me in a lot of ways - to try and make something of my life. What I didn't realize, or learn from the story of tragic story of Neil also in that movie, that you can have too much of a good thing. Sometimes grand passion to achieve has to give way to an appreciation of what I have instead. I can miss the smaller things when I'm not looking for them.

(Psst - there are no smaller things.)

Here's the full text of the poem, "The World is Too Much With Us", by William Wordsworth.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

 

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

 

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

 

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

 

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

 

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

 

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

 

I'll bet Wordsworth would have loved Dead Poets Society as much as I did. An as intriguing as the sound of Triton blowing a horn would be, it's not just a stroll in nature that can bring us back around to ourselves.

A smile. A friendly hug. A compliment. Some trinket or gift that lets me know someone has given me some thought.

These are the sorts of things that keep me going, and that keep others going. They're things we can all do, every day. 

 

We are all God's, and we are all brothers and sisters in His family. Let's not forget each other in the middle of all our getting and going and achieving.