Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

I read this quote recently from John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America.  (I’m not reading the book, unfortunately.  I was just looking for a different quote.)

“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age.  In middle age I was assured greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ships's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, once a bum always a bum. I fear this disease incurable.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

I read the book years ago, and I liked it.  But I’ve been feeling very restless for awhile, and I found this quote a little depressing.  I thought perhaps I might eventually fade gracefully into a comfortable old age.  Apparently not.

Looking at the beautiful fall foliage outside gave me another thought about this.  If I’m in the “autumn” of my life, which I suppose, depressingly, I am, then that means two things.  On the one hand, it’s the gentle slope toward the end of life, a winding down.  But autumn leaves sure go out in a blaze of glory, don’t they?  Perhaps my restlessness is a search for my blaze of glory, and a sense of urgency about doing something while I still can.  But what?

This reminds me of a different quote, from a Dylan Thomas poem:

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.

Rage on.

Autumn