Invictus
The frequency and severity of my making mistakes is more than annoying, more than something that may be attributed to aging. I constantly drop things, forget important information, and confuse issues and facts. It makes me feel terrible to commit errors, especially when added to my limited mobility and non-reliable body issues. In fact, consequences of my actions could be very harmful to others. There is very little comfort in others explaining to me: "It's just your old age."
On this early landscape, I hate to apologize for being so feeble and non-helpful, and yet when I do try to explain my oversights and my misconceptions, I only muddle them up more. There are no accurate, valid reasons for my mistakes: I simply make them over and over again. I am the person in charge of my false moves, and I often wish I could overcome my clumsiness and mental gaffes but lately they have gotten worse instead of better. I understand this "haze" serves as a great frustration to many of my loved ones.
I worry about the damage I inflict upon others with my mistakes. From being unable to express my feelings to unsafe driving to flaws in my relationships, I am truly sorry, and I feel my attempts at rationalization nor my attempted pleas for forgiveness never serve to exonerate me. I am at a point in life where mistakes have dominated my thinking, so I can only ask God for his mercy as I repent my many wrongdoings.
May my spirit under God's grace be invincible in old age. I can only pray and hope for His eternal guidance and grace.I so relate to the venerated poem "Invictus" by poet, writer and critic -- William Ernest Henley. I see hope in the verse in a limited scope: that is, a great hope in assuming the valid thinking of a completely well human with good faculties. I could not face the Captain's role with such a strict, straight upper lift. He did. I am not now that strong or even that adamantly headstrong. I often wither.
Yet, instead of Henley's view in the poem, that he "has never winced nor cried aloud under the bludgeonings of chance," I find my head is now bloody and bowed. I am uncertain if it will ever fully recover.
I do not hide from fear but I certainly live with it in my dealings with others -- friends and family feel my meekness. I most definitely fear death will never compensate or even explain my twisted existence and its panic and dread. It seems as if my confidence to find peace lowers upon repeated regret and insufficient explanations of any kind for my many faults. I am no William Ernest Henley although I greatly admire his indomitable courage and tremendous, undefeated will. I am his critic.
I also differ with Henley in myself as an invincible person who must trust in himself or in herself. In this poem, the speaker
is faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges. Throughout it all,
however, he perseveres and successfully conquers his treacherous endeavors. He faces each
challenge with courage and is not afraid that he can surmount any
hardship he faces. How difficult must some real challenges must surely be -- I often rely not on my own feelings but on the help of others to succeed.
It does not matter to him how narrow the gate to heaven is. Neither the “punishments” inscribed on the “scroll” makes him frightened. It is his self-belief and courage that will help him sail through all difficulties.
(Jamie Jenson. "Invictus." https://poemanalysis.com/william-ernest-henley/invictus/. 2024.)
I understand my punishment as self-inflicted pain of living an unfruitful, unworthy life. I often consider how much greater my contributions to mankind might have been if I had taken the helm as the determined, brave "master of my fate and thoughtful captain of my soul." My early years of laissez-faire and later time of unwanted intrusive thoughts and images about being responsible for harm coming to others is classic OCD. In older life, it often freezes my actions and, thus, stifles my good intentions. The "menace" of my years has been the fear of failing and causing harm to others. This philosophy bothers me, like it or not.
Ironically, the more I am adrift, the worse the "wrath and tears" I put upon myself. I pray others live without fear, yet somehow I worry about being the cause of their misfortunes. I, not others, beat myself up to the point of believing I have an easily conquerable soul. Age has confirmed my confidence not not "master" anything related to feelings and emotional control.
One of the worst enemies to the feelings of personal resilience in the face of incredible adversity is loneliness. Henley's speaker seems to scoff at this in his rhymed quatrain stanzas. Ultimately, the speaker asserts a philosophy of self-sufficiency and a kind of inner free will, regardless of the events fate throws at us. "Gods" used in a pagan, one creator form. This philosophy comes to define the speaker. I hope my one true God helps the lonely, deserted souls to accept challenges they inevitably face.
With no mention of divine assistance, Henley instead invokes personal strength as the savior of the reader. His speaker seems to have no certainty in religion or in religious belief.The stanzas build on one another by offering variations on this theme. The self-enclosure of the stanzas also mimics the self-sufficiency that acts as the poem's main philosophy.
I understand that "Invictus" is a highly personal poem meant to be able to inspire anyone, and I'm certain it does mainly achieve its purpose. I am struck with its immortal bow to the indomitable human spirit. Its straightforward lack of apathy or artificiality, Henley affirms life at all costs. For those strong spirits, this must compensate for a world without God.
Still this view knocks a hole in the universal religious belief that God is truly "master of my fate." As for "captain of my soul," I know no one who can claim such certainly of spiritual leadership and control of eternal destination. I know I am certainly not holy enough to make this bold statement. The poem itself greatly inspires my will but lacks any reference to help getting to the point of salvation and forgiveness.
Tying these words of analysis to my own theme today, Henley seems to avoid acknowledging overcoming human mistakes by anything or anyone other than by indomitable self-confidence and the complete power of the individual human spirit. I am, if a Captain or Master of anything, incomplete, lonely, and most definitely afraid. I admit how powerless I am in great humility, and I offer prayer for my many misgivings.
It is with the lonely feelings of uncertainty that I mean to help others, not neglect or selfishly hurt them to preserve my own being or ego. I thoroughly understand my influence is next to nothing, but I want to finish my journey with causing no harm to others. In this cruel and unforgiving world, I will accept the "bludgeonings" of chance and the subsequent "bloody heads" I suffer. I am neither leader, nor in complete control.
But, all in all, I need divine help to succeed in weathering any severe storm. And, in doing so, I aim to master and control my pitiful failings to a meager few in that the frequency of error that I and, most importantly, others must deal with does no further harm. I would thrill to build them up with beautiful comradery and gracious faith.
The kingdom, the power, and the glory belong to the Almighty. Me -- I am a lonely, frightened, insufficient servant at his call. I can sail on rough waters only with His gracious hands on the wheel. Be that the destiny of all my friends and loved ones, no matter how damaged or weak they may become. I pray, "Be it so."
* Notes of Biography -- From the age of 12, Henley had tuberculosis of the bone that resulted in the amputation of his left leg below the knee in 1868–69. The early years of Henley's life were punctuated by periods of extreme pain due to the draining of his tuberculosis abscesses. However, Henley's younger brother Joseph recalled how after draining his joints the young Henley would "Hop about the room, laughing loudly and playing with zest to pretend he was beyond the reach of pain
Stevenson's stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, described Henley as "... a great, glowing, massive-shouldered fellow with a big red beard and a crutch; jovial, astoundingly clever, and with a laugh that rolled like music; he had an unimaginable fire and vitality; he swept one off one's feet."
Frequent illness often kept Henley from school, although the misfortunes of his father's business may also have contributed. In 1867, Henley passed the Oxford Local Schools Examination. Soon after passing the examination, Henley moved to London and attempted to establish himself as a journalist. His work over the next eight years was interrupted by long stays in hospitals, because his right foot had also become diseased. Henley contested the diagnosis that a second amputation was the only means to save his life, seeking treatment from the pioneering late 19th-century surgeon Joseph Lister at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, =, commencing in August 1873. Henley spent three years in hospital, during which he was visited by the authors Leslie Stephen and Robert Louis Stevenson
While recovering in the infirmary, he was moved to write the verses that became the poem "Invictus". A memorable evocation of Victorian stoicism-- the "stiff upper lip" of self-discipline and fortitude in adversity, which popular culture
rendered into a British character trait—"Invictus" remains a cultural
touchstone.He wrote the poem in 1875 and dedicated it to Scottish flour merchant named Robert Thomas Hamilton Bruce.
Notes
Mehew, Ernest. "William Ernest Henley, (1849–1903)," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [2004 Ed.], Oxford, UK". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. Retrieved 8 May 2015. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.
Green, Lancelyn Rogers. Fifty Years of Peter Pan. P. Davies, 1954. p. 36
Diniejko, Andrzej (19 July 2011). "William Ernest Henley: A Biographical Sketch". victorianweb.org. The Victorian Web. Retrieved 9 November 2016.
Connell, John (1949), W. E. Henley, London: Constable, page numbers as indicated.
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