The Dying Of The Light

A couple of weeks ago I was out at the bar when I ran into someone I’ve known for a year or two and who I went on a couple of dates with last year.  This is someone I’m not particularly interested in anymore, mainly because they’re extremely negative and dark which doesn’t really appeal to me.  Nonetheless, this person, who I hadn’t seen in almost a year, had something interesting to say that stuck with me:

N: "You have this light inside you…"
Me: laugh
N: "No, don’t laugh, listen to me.  You have this light inside you, but it’s a lot dimmer than it used to be.  So I’m asking you, as a human being, are you okay?"

It particularly stuck with me because in January I was talking to the ex I was with for the first 6 months of working in the sex trade and she had something similar to say when I asked what it was like being with me while I was in the trade: "It was like watching the light inside someone die.  It was really scary."

I recently agreed to promote a weekly night for a local dj who’s trying to break into the scene.  After a small tiff last week regarding expectations and fulfillment I tried to bail on the project for a variety of reasons, but she wouldn’t let me.  She insisted that I stick with the project and that I would do a great job – that I have a light inside me that she can see and that I just need to access again.  I’m skeptical and to be honest even thinking about it makes me feel really tired.

Recently I’ve had a famous phrase from a Dylan Thomas poem running through my mind, so I decided to Google the phrase and found the poem, which I originally heard in Grade 8 or 9 English class.  The poem:

"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"
by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.