Dead Poets and The Devil’s Waterhole

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” – Henry David Thoreau

Reading the great poets is sometimes like looking at a fancy top-hat from seventeen-whatever behind some glass. 

The plaque contains a paragraph of perfectly factual information. You skim – just in case anybody asks. It’s meant to “enrich” you, whatever that means. It’s vaguely interesting, but, honestly, lunch is more pressing.

Sometimes, though, if you gaze through the glass long enough, you slip right through it. It telescopes impossibly into a 50 foot hole, and vertigo sets in as the poetic heights become real and lift your guts.

In Austin, there is this beautiful river with sheer cliffs on either side. “The Devil’s Waterhole.” Locals dare you to jump 50 feet into the dark water below. 

As I climbed up to give it a try, this kid smiled at me. Then, I noticed his left foot was absolutely mangled. It had happened recently – you could tell by the swelling. I stared, mouth open, clinging to the rocks. He laughed at me. My heart was racing, but, when you’re 20-something, you aren’t allowed to not jump off rocks.

After what felt like a full minute of free-fall, I slapped the water with my body. Immersed in the darkness for a private moment, I came up again, unharmed. Laughing, I swam over to the rocks, and climbed up again. This time, I smiled back at the kid with the smashed foot. 

In the movie Dead Poets Society, Robin William’s character leads his class of private school boys to a cabinet full of photos of long-gone alumni. He’s trying to get them to understand why poetry might matter. So, he shows them photos of irrelevant people from eighteen-whenever behind some glass.

He invites them to lean closer. Can you hear them whisper? Listen:

“Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils… Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.”

They slipped through the glass, and they were in free-fall, down toward the dark water below. 

Of course, the school’s administration hates Robin Williams' character and what he stands for. They would rather have them study charts that breaks down the numeric efficacy of Shakespeare versus Chaucer. But, no. Rip out those pages from the book! As a result, they become better students – better men. So why do they hate and fear him?

Well, one of the kids becomes so becomes so enraptured by the poetry and how it inspires his pursuit of truth, adventure, honor, that when his tyrannical father forbids him from becoming an actor, he commits suicide. That’s why. It actually is dangerous to feel fully. Old, stodgy people are almost right to warn us – don’t touch the glass! Many have been driven mad – fell at the wrong angle, caught in the current of a bad idea that won't let them go, drowned. The list of dead poets is long – and I mean dead before their time.

But, occasionally we run across a man with a smooshed foot. Someone who's been hurt by the majesty and yet, is smiling at us, knowing that he would do it all again. One experience of being truly alive is vastly more valuable than a lifetime of fear.

The only way to truly experience these things is to dive in like a child, let them have their way with you, and potentially never recover. Don’t just read them to have read them, or read them to remember the main themes, or to be tested on them, or to say to others at a cocktail party that you’ve read the thing. Let them truly immerse you in its worldview like dark water below a 50-foot fall, to wrest your usual consciousness from you in an uncontrollable torrent and to pull you to new depths, where you may never have another breath of familiar air again.

Emerge laughing and smiling, knowing it was all worthwhile, even if it maimed or killed good friends in their prime. You can't say that to someone who hasn’t felt it, and so you just smile at them, shattered foot and all. 

Anybody who has ever been young knows it’s better to jump off the cliff than to not.

Emerson and Thoreau on a cliff.