fandomhigh | Carpe Diem: Making Your Lives Extraordinary, Period 4, Class 2

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Carpe Diem: Making Your Lives Extraordinary, Period 4, Class 2

Drake had a large painting hanging in the front of the room. Shhh. He'd return it to the Odon Wagner Gallery in Toronto when class was over, and they'd never know it was missing. As soon as the class had all arrived, he began to recite:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow 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 for ever tarry.

"That poem is called 'To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,' by Robert Herrick in the 17th century," Drake explained. "The poem is an example of the genre carpe diem, which is of course Latin for seize the day. And for the purposes of this class, we're going to just gloss over the fact that in Elizabethian slang, 'dying' means both death and having an orgasm. Anyway! Carpe diem expresses a philosophy that recognizes the brevity of life and therefore the need to live for and in the moment. The phrase originated over 2000 years ago with Horace, who wrote: 'Carpe diem quam minime credula postero' -- meaning 'Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future.' The future is unknowable, so live it up now while you can.

"Now, I'm not totally down with Horace because he seems to be advising that you shouldn't have any hopes for the future," Drake went on. "Instead, I'm going to go with my man James Dean here: 'Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.' Now, last week I asked you about things you wanted to do before you died, but I don't think there was a lot of day-seizing going on there yet. So let me ask you this time: tell me something you regret. Is there an action that you wish you had taken -- or not taken -- in the past? An opportunity you passed up on that you wished you had taken? If you could have done something differently -- and let's make this something you conceivably could have done differently -- what would it be?"

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Seizing a moment.

Nobody Owens

Dan Humphrey

Sookie Stackhouse

Bobby Drake

Didi

Tim Drake

Emma Frost

Alex Russo

Ellie Bartowski

Kennedy

Zack Fair

Diana Hansen

Chloe Saunders

Jason Todd

Cloud Strife

Dru Anderson

Helen Haras-Uquara

Karla

Madison Avery

Talk, pass notes, try to look like you're paying attention, as you do.

Bod didn't take notes because he was too busy thinking of both the phrases in the lecture and the following question. He regretted things but he didn't always like to admit that.

Sookie didn't take notes so much as reflect on the fact that this morning, she'd had another dream about her grandmother, and had woken again with that strange tug towards the woods.

So, naturally, her thoughts revolved around Gran and the regrets she had there, though she wanted to think of something more specific than 'I wish I'd been a better granddaughter.'

Alex was paying attention, thank you very much. And she was trying to come up with something she regretted. There were alot of things she'd done in the past that could've gone differently, that's for sure.

Ellie was listening, though she wasn't taking notes. Mostly, she was trying to think of something she regretted and wished she could have done differently.

Oh, like Kennedy didn't know that thing about the other meaning of 'dying.' (Thank you, two-week fling from ninth grade English lit.) She was paying attention to the lecture, with a focus that might make most of her previous teachers from past schools wonder where they'd gone wrong, eyes alight.

Yeah, this was totally up her alley.

Zack was paying attention, but the subject matter was heavy, today.

He spent too much time running from his regrets to be given to taking a moment's pause to dwell on them. When coupled with dreams he'd been having lately, it was downright tiring.

Emma regretted a lot of things, up until the point she'd walked out the front door of Winston's house.

But now she acted, she took what she wanted and did what she wanted to do, and she was never going to regret anything ever again.

Jason really was trying to pay attention, but his focus kept going out the window, quite literally, as he thought about going into the woods yesterday, and the dreams he kept having about his mother.

Cloud was made of regrets.

Why all his classes were torturing him like this?

"So let me ask you this time: tell me something you regret. Is there an action that you wish you had taken -- or not taken -- in the past? An opportunity you passed up on that you wished you had taken? If you could have done something differently -- and let's make this something you conceivably could have done differently -- what would it be?"

Bod was thoughtful on this question for awhile. He didn't know whether to be serious or not. His serious regrets were more attached to his past and he wasn't always keen to get into that.

"I regret being arrested once," he finally said even if he didn't regret that completely. "Someone close to me got hurt because of it."

Didi's memory went back a very, very long time -- back to when Delirium was still Delight, and Death was still the angriest Endless.

"Once my youngest sister came to me for advice," she said quietly. "Boy problems. I ... was not kind. Things would have been much easier for everyone, if I'd just made the effort to be nice."

"I regret spending an evening with a friend once," Sookie said carefully, not wanting to use the word 'vampire' or anything. "I wasn't somewhere I should have been because of it."

Granted, she would have probably died in Gran's place if she'd been there. But things would have gone differently, in any case.

"I wish I had done more to prevent someone I know from...making a bad decision," Ellie said vaguely. Preventing her dad from leaving was something she conceivably thought she could have done differently even if that wasn't the case.

"There are people I would have said good-bye to, while I still had the chance," Zack settled on. "Some of them... They're still alive and well, but I've probably burned too many bridges, just by leaving the way I did."

He'd had to get out of Gongaga. It was home, but there was nothing there for him. And he hadn't said a word to his parents, since.

It really wasn't about what she wished she hadn't done, even though that list could be long; it wasn't even about what she wished she had.

Kennedy shrugged and offered, a touch more seriously than usual, "There wasn't really a whole lot I could do about it, 'and anyway it never really occurred to me at the time, but it might've been nice to actually spend more time with my parents as a kid."

Once a few others had answered, Jason felt more comfortable saying, "I wish I'd spent more time with my mother when I had the chance, while she was still healthy and we could do stuff together. I regret thinking I'd have all the time in the world with her."

The fact that Cloud actually needed to pick only made it harder.

"Some time ago I was used due to my lack of self confidence. I regret not had been able to be stronger back then." It was the typical 'a lot of people would be still alive' story, but he was leaving it at that.

"And there are way too many things I would change." He would have protected Aerith better, kept Zack out of danger...his town, his mother.

"If I hadn't come to Fandom, if I'd stayed with my dad," Dru said slowly. "He'd probably still be alive."

Edited 2010-07-14 23:28 (UTC)

He's got no regrets.

Who will hopefully never regret taking this gig.

No regrets on Didi's part, anyhow. She seemed thoughtful during the class session.

I would like to steal that John William Waterhouse painting, plz. Mmm, Pre-Raphaelite art.

Gorgeous painting.

And my favorite James Dean quote! \o/

I have a print-on-canvas reproduction of The Crystal Ball over our fireplace.

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Carpe Diem: Making Your Lives Extraordinary, Period 4, Class 2

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