We're Gonna Make It

Today we look at the classic poem, "To the Virgins. to Make Much of Time" by Robert Herrick and we remind ourselves that we are alive. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying. The glorious lamp of heaven the sun, The higher he's a-getting, The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he's to setting. That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former. Then be not coy, but use your time, And, while ye may, go marry; For, having lost but once your prime, You may forever tarry.

Today we look at a short quote from Orwell's Animal Farm

Today we look at a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief? My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old anvil wince and sing — Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling- ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief."' O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep, Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

Today is a reflection on a quote from Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked. "When the times are a crucible when the air is full of crisis," she said, "those who are the most themselves are the victims."

Today we look at Ozymandian by Percy Bysshe Shelly. The full poem can be found below: I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Today we look at a very, very short poem by Robert Frost. “We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.” ― Robert Frost

Today we look to Langston Hughes. The full poem can be found below: I am so tired of waiting, Aren't you, For the world to become good And beautiful and kind? Let us take a knife And cut the world in two – And see what worms are eating At the rind. -Langston Hughes

It's hard to remember that we aren't always in control. But that's just the way it is. Here is the quote: “The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around them. That's all you need to know. Nothing more. Don't demand to know ‘why such things exist.' Anyone who understands the world will laugh at you, just as a carpenter would if you seemed shocked at finding sawdust in his workshop, or a shoemaker at scraps of leather left over from work” - Meditations, Book 8

Waiting on the world to change isn't new. We've been doing it forever. It isn't easy, but we're gonna make it. Here's today's poem: Wait Without Hope By: T.S. Eliot I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning. The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry, The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony Of death and birth.

Let's be real. Life sucks. This is a podcast made for you by the best philosophers, poets, and scholars the world has ever known. Each of these great thinkers knew that we live in difficult times, and they have some advice for us. Every Tuesday and Thursday Taylor Kerby (of Talk About It) brings you little taste of that advice and some of his own thoughts. Each episode is under five minutes and will give you just enough strength to make it to the next one.