Idealism and Poetry

Oh, reflection! I don’t know that I’ve been doing enough of it lately, but I have recently been barraged (sp?) by a huge amount of references to some variation of carpe diem. Here’s what I mean. Lately, all I’ve been watching or hearing has in some way or another told me I need to experience all I can. Taste it, drink it, live it, soak it in, question it, laugh at it, be it. In fact, I was watching Anderson Cooper 360 and at the end he says, “You can’t just sit behind a desk all the time and think you know what’s going on in the world. You have to go out and see it for yourself. You gotta smell it, you gotta taste it, you gotta see it.”
I never want to just sit behind a desk all the time. I never want to forget what the world is like, how they hurt, how they laugh, how they live. I know that I am generally an idealistic person who thinks everything has a positive side and will talk herself into anything…but I want to learn how to stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves. How to educate people about how the world really works, what the world is really facing. I don’t want to hide behind my ignorance and comfort. I know that it will be hard for me to learn how to change the world I live in but I really want to learn. I want whatever career I end up in to be one that allows me the power to affect lives. I know that just by writing this I am an idealist, just by thinking I could one day have the power to change things is idealistic. But…if I think that I can do nothing, then what is the point of even knowing what is happening? What is the point of being educated? Maybe what I will end up doing will be small but, whatever it is, I hope it helps in some way.
Related to that in a small way, I am happy I am here in Korea. I am still not convinced Korea is an awesome country but I know that I can learn a lot here about myself, people, and everything else there is to know. I want to learn, I truly do. Now, I just have to figure out what it is I want next. Even though I still have a year here, if I don’t start thinking now about what is next I may get stuck.
While I’ve been here I have also stumbled upon Pablo Neruda. He is a poet whom I enjoy reading very, very much. I’ll end with a poem that I really love with a piece of my soul.
If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda
I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenlyyou forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine