Strive to find your own voice

“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!”

I always knew this would be one of my favorite movies and I think that’s why I put off watching it for the longest time. This literally was, up until now, the first movie on Letterboxd I ever added to my watchlist, and its been there since I first joined.

Dead Poets Society stresses the importance not only of individualism, but taking the actions necessary in order to manifest a reality for your dreams, and if one doesn’t take those actions then those dreams cannot be made manifest. An undeniable and life-long mark do these words, peddled by Robin Williams, leave on his group of students he has been assigned to teach. These words do they take to heart, and one-by-one are their dreams manifested into reality from the very-simple-but-also-very-difficult act of saying “yes” to something your heart tells you to do, even when your brain is beating it into your skull to say “no”.

The worst teachers we ever have during our time in school do we look back on for the rest of our lives with such seething scorn and vitriol. But the teachers who actually cared, who didn’t just read from a sheet of paper or from slides on a powerpoint and didn’t just mindlessly follow the outlines of the curriculum like a robot, and who actually injected the humility of their worldview into their lessons are the teachers that we remember, and the teachers whose words we carry with us for the rest of our lives. One of the only teachers I ever had who was somewhat close to this outline was my year nine Maths teacher, Mr Cooper, someone whose memory and genuine care for his students I still look back on fondly with only a magnitude of the utmost respect and still continue to carry with me. I wouldn’t say I was a Maths-whiz by any means in High School, but there was a period, before Mr Cooper taught me where I was truly horrible at it, and I only got twenties and thirties on tests. Always. Every time. However, from twenties and thirties did this man help bump me up to an average of sixties and seventies, and this range I stayed at for the rest of my days in high school. He unfortunately passed away a few months after I graduated, and one of the greatest regrets I ever had was not telling him in person just how much his encouragement and his belief in the potential of his students meant to me. Thank you Mr Cooper.