Carpe+diem

xx =Dead Poets Society= [|Latin Phrases] [|Amercan Transcendentalism]

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.” ― [|Henry David Thoreau]



“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” ― [|Mahatma Gandhi]

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”

― [|Mother Teresa]

The verbal form of the call is "// Carpe Diem //--seize the day!" Keating tells his students to take a look at Robert Herrick's famous lines:

// Gather the rosebuds while ye may, // Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today, To-morrow will be dying.

"Why does the poet write these lines?" Keating asks, and he eventually answers himself with a flourish: "Because we are food for worms, lads! Because we're only going to experience a limited number of springs, summers, and falls. One day, hard as it is to believe, each and every one of us is going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die!"

To drive home this point Keating makes the students look at the old photographs of former Welton students that decorate the hallways. “They are not that different than any of you, are they? There's hope in their eyes, just like in yours. They believe themselves destined for wonderful things, just like many of you. Well, where are those smiles now, boys? What of that hope?" The students are sobered by what Keating is saying. Keating continues:

// Did most of them not wait until it was too late before making their lives into even one iota of what they were capable? In chasing the almighty deity of success did they not squander their boyhood dreams? Most of those gentlemen are fertilizing daffodils now. However, if you get very close, boys, you can hear them whisper. Go ahead, lean in. Hear it? (Whispering) Carpe Diem, lads. Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary! //

(From Jorn Bramann: //The Educating Rita Workbook//, Copyright © 2004)

[]

== In [|Horace], the phrase is part of the longer "carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero", which can be translated as "Seize the day, put very little trust in tomorrow (the future)". The ode says that the future is unforeseen and that one should not leave to chance future happenings, but rather one should do all one can today to make one's future better. This phrase is usually understood against Horace's [|Epicurean] background. [|[][|5] The phrase "carpe diem" is often used differently in contemporary popular culture, to justify reckless behavior ([|YOLO], you only live once). The meaning of "carpe diem" as used by Horace is not to ignore the future, but rather not to trust that everything is going to fall into place for you and taking action for the future today. [|[][|6] []
 * Carpe diem ** is a [|Latin] [|aphorism] usually translated to "seize the day", taken from a poem in the // [|Odes] // (book 1, number 11) in 23 BC by the poet [|Horace].