All work

Over the past few days nothing much has happened, apart from incessant work, both for Niki and me. While I type this, Astrid is being cuddled through the safety net by a neighbour, the evening sun is setting, and I am watching a Star Trek (Enterprise, the new series) episode - a first in many days!

A while ago, when I was in Amsterdam, I saw a movie with Irena, called Evictus, starring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. The story is carried by wonderful performances and by a poem by William Earnst Henley (1849 - 1903), an English poet of some renown, but especially for this poem. Nelson Mandela had the poem "Invictus" written on a scrap of paper on his prison cell, and it inspired him while he was incarcerated for 27 years on Robben Island. The last few lines are very powerful, I find.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.