Leaving a Mark

In “The Perfect Life”, John Koethe describes life, not the ideal one, but the one that we all will experience. He illustrates happiness as a reflection of youth. Is happiness achieved through ignorance? According to Koethe, the only way to achieve eternal bliss is to live in denial. “…someone in the grip of a delusion…” while one is young one sees the world colorful and without regret. However, trying to rediscover the happiness that we once knew is impossible.

As Koethe begins writing the poem, he describes the life of a person with no regrets, a vigorous and satisfied visionary. As he starts the second stanza he changes his tone. He starts using words with negative connotations, and begins to describe an old man reminiscing about the life that he once had. At first everything seems enjoyable, but as you age beauty fades and excitement turns to boredom. As I read the poem, I felt crestfallen. What is the point of living, if you can’t feel alive? In no way do I identify myself with this poem. Perhaps infinite ignorance has blinded me, an eternal optimist, to the point where Koethe’s words seem ridiculous. The last two lines turned my gloominess into anger, the narrator of the poem says that life is forgotten, at the end of the road, we must all succumb to the idea that the wake will erase our footprint. No! We make our destiny, if we let ourselves get lost in the crowd our names will be forgotten. Youth will be the only representation of pleasure in the human race. People live life looking for satisfaction, hoping to achieve a sense of belonging, but belonging does not develop happiness. No one life will be perfect. It is our duty to be worthy of having had the opportunity to live. Our life will not be forgotten if we leave a mark, be it in someone else or in some creation that made a difference to other people’s lives. On the day we die, the wake will fall, but it will not signify that our life was meaningless.