("Forest in my Pocket", watercolours, Mika G.)

Treegod (Adam) :

One of my favourite films, funny, intelligent and inspirational has to be the Dead Poet’s Society with Robin Williams. I’d recommend anyone to see it. It’s all about a very strict American boarding school called Welton whose “pillars” are Tradition, Honour, Discipline and Excellence. Although the students call the school “Hellton” and describe the four pillars as Travesty, Horror, Decadence and Excrement. Basically an unorthodox teacher comes, played by Robin Williams and starts causing “trouble” by the standards of other teachers and parents, although as we shall see, he just wanted to inspire the students to live their own life!

Here’s a link describing it; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Poets_Society

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived … I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner…"

This is the original quotation they adapted for the film by Henry David Thoreau. The whole film was about carpe diem, latin for seize the day, which is also emphasised in the quote above. Suck the marrow isn’t at all morbid, it just means live life because it’ll soon be taken away. To not let life pass you by but to grasp it and take up every bit of it that you can. A wasted life is no life at all!

Also it’s about noncomformity. In the movie, most of the students are put into Welton because their parents make them go, it’s their parents that decide the life and career they will lead. One student finds he has a passion for acting but his father abhors the idea and wants him to become a doctor and so forces is son not to do any acting, although the son rebels!

No, I can’t live someone elses life, that’s their responsibility, if someone else hasn’t lived their life why should they stop me from living mine? I’ve got to live my own responsibility and make my life unique and extraordinary and “suck out all the marrow of life” and so once again we come full circle back to carpe diem!

Here’s some quotes by Robin Williams character John Keating I found here; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097165/quotes These really are inspirational, but don’t just read these, watch the movie! And don’t just watch the movie, live life!!!

“No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.”

“They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear it? - - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.”

“Sucking all the marrow out of life doesn't mean choking on the bone.”

“I thought the purpose of education was to learn to think for yourself.”

“Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because 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!”