If you don’t know that I live a life of passion and anger, then I have done a good job. Make no mistake, I am not happy about how things have turned out. The anger rages, but where I can make a difference, requires more temperance than anger.

So…

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.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

We do not have to grow more conservative with age. We can choose to fight for everyone. We can choose to let our old prejudices die. Prejudice and hate are merely the results of lazy, sloppy thinking; habits carried out of fear. We really don’t have to be fearful of difference.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Have no regrets. Fight for right. Fight for the rights of all. Don’t leave it to others. Do you really want to die knowing you stood by and did nothing? Or worse, that you actively supported the subjugation of women and people of color?

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

–“Do not go gentle into that good night,” Dylan Thomas

I will never go gently into that good night. You will have to take me kicking and screaming. I won’t just stand by.  Rage, rage  against the dying of the light, against the dying of rights.