Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima

A long time ago, an English teacher told me that human beings were not motivated by their triumphs but by their struggles so any good story needed to revolve around some central conflict. Man against machine, man against some other man, man against himself, etc. I guess the struggle is important because the outcome isn't written yet. We still have time to choose.

I was recently reminded of T.S. Eliot's poem "The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock." In this story, our hero desperately wants to tell a woman about his feelings for her but is paralyzed by his fear of rejection.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

In the end, he gives in to his fears and his monologue goes from self-justification to self-abasement. In short, he fights himself and loses. Poor devil. The saddest thing about this poem is not that Prufrock is deeply conflicted because we all have our demons. The real tragedy here is that he'll never know what would have happened if he'd said something.

What if she said she liked him too? Would you be willing to risk a little embarrassment if it gave you a shot at the person you can't get out of your head?

I would.

And even if your affections weren't reciprocated, at least your heart will have the freedom to move on.


Ay, fight and you may die, run and you'll live.
At least a while.

And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom

~ William Wallace (Braveheart)