Carpe Diem

My fondest memory of my Junior year of High School was watching The Dead Poets Society.  I was enthralled by the characters' love for literature, and I found myself in a similar situation, although I was alone in that aspect.  But the most recognizable line from that film is simply: Carpe Diem.  Seize the day.

I find it interesting that someone who presumably loves writing as much as I do identified instead with a relatively passive phrase.  Bernard Cooper's short essay, "Que Sera Sera," attempts to take an objective view on the aspect of waiting for something.  He uses Cinderella and Rip Van Winkle as several examples from literature, but there is no argument presented.  He simply poses a dilemma, which causes the reader to wonder which is more important.  Do we wait, or do we live in the now?

Interestingly enough, we aren't actually given an answer.  Cooper doesn't even try to convince us one way or another.  It's as if he attempted to remove all bias completely, leaving little else in the short essay.  I would argue that the greatest works of literature are essentially arguments.  We can look toward Tolkien's famous trilogy, Sauron is evil because...  The small will become great...  Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.   When we compare that to this, we end up wanting.  We don't find ourselves having a fulfilled answer by the end of the writing.  Perhaps that was Cooper's point, although in a more traditional essay, if one is going to ask a question, one should supply an answer.