Moyers: How would you advise somebody to tap that spring of eternal life, that bliss that is right there?
Campbell: We are having experiences all the time which may on occasion render some sense of this, a little
intuition of where your bliss is. Grab it. No one can tell you what it is going to be. You have to learn to
recognize your own depth.
The thought of doing what you want was intriguing to me but I didn't know what that would be. Besides, I had bills to
pay.
A couple of months later I was indifferently filling out audit work papers thinking there had to be something
better. While reading the paper at lunch I noticed an article in the business section stating that the cartoonist Charles Schulz made
over a million dollars a month from his Peanuts cartoon. "Holy cow," I thought. "You can make that kind
of dough doing something fun. I can do that. It doesn't look that hard. Just spend a couple of hours drawing and take the
rest of the day off." I purchased some books on cartooning and started to draw. I found out it wasn't going to be as easy as I
thought. My drawing experience consisted mostly of doodling and drawing caricatures of my teachers in my notebooks in high school
and college. I had a lot of work ahead of me.
I took various drawing classes and even the "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" seminar in California. What I found
out was that I really liked drawing and that there had to be some way to make a living do so. I was drawing away one night with the
television on and the movie The Dead Poets Society came on. Soon Robin Williams face filled the screen as the following scene took
place:
Robin Williams as Mr. Keating: Mr. Pitts, would you open your hymnal to page 542 and read the first stanza of the poem
you find there?
Pitts: "To the virgins, to make much of time"?
Keating: Yes, that's the one. Somewhat appropriate, isn't it?
Pitts: "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a flying, and this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow
will be dying."
Keating: Thank you Mr. Pitts. "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may." The Latin term for that sentiment is Carpe
Diem. Now who knows what that means?
Meeks immediately puts his hand up.
Meeks: Carpe Diem. That's "seize the day."
Keating: Very good, Mr.--
Meeks: Meeks.
Keating: Another unusual name. Seize the day. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Why does the writer
use these lines?
Charlie: Because he's in a hurry.
Keating: No, ding!
Keating slams his hand down on an imaginary buzzer.
Keating: Thank you for playing anyway. Because we are food for worms lads. Because, believe it or not, each
and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die.
Keating turns towards the trophy cases, filled with trophies, footballs, and team pictures.
Keating: Now I would like you to step forward over here and peruse some of the faces from the past. You've walked
past them many times. I don't think you've really looked at them.
The students slowly gather round the cases and Keating moves behind them.
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