IQ148 // namjoon ✔️

__SEPTEMBER__

NamJoon has found a mind akin to his.

Perhaps T. S. Eliot had gone through what NamJoon is going through now.

The end of the book describes how Eliot has attempted to help the world as a poet. He parallels his work in language with working on the soul or working on society. That's how NamJoon wishes his music to be known as; he wants his music to have a deep impact and leave an impression on people. If his music can ease the everyday trials that people constantly have to face, then his work would be all worth it.

Although Eliot overexerts religion in his collection of poetry — in NamJoon's personal opinion — the great poet thinks much like him.

NamJoon finds that Eliot's poems are structured based on several points about: time, experience, purgation, prayer, wholeness.

The movement of time, in which brief moments of eternity are caught.

Worldly experience, leading to dissatisfaction.

Purgation in the world, divesting the soul of the love of created things.

A lyric prayer for, or affirmation of the need of, intercession.

The problem of attaining artistic wholeness, which becomes an analogue for and merges into the problem of achieving spiritual health.

NamJoon notices Eliot hits all of these points in a rhythmic approach; the four poems coming together to become interlinked meditations as Eliot guides readers through his musings or extended thoughts on deeper philosophical or religious questions.

NamJoon is sure JungMi would love to read this, if she hasn't already.

They have talked about the concept of time before in the words of Albert Einstein, but Eliot puts things into a new perspective; he gives NamJoon a different way of viewing time as a measurement of existence. Eliot definitely delves into the concept of time more intimately than a single phrase.

But of all the poems in the collection, the very last poem is the one that leaves the greatest impression on NamJoon.

"The Little Gidding" is the last of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets and it synthesises the themes of the earlier poems within its sections.

"Little Gidding" was started after the third poem in the book called "The Dry Salvages" but was delayed because of Eliot's declining health and his dissatisfaction with early drafts of the poem. Eliot was unable to finish the poem until September 1942, which, coincidentally, falls on NamJoon's birth month. He can imagine now how 75 years ago, Eliot was probably finishing this poem around this time after struggling to finish it for so long. It's kind of how NamJoon feels when he's dissatisfied with his lyrics and has to alter them over time to his satisfaction.

The poem is named after a 17th-century Anglican monastery renowned for its devotion; the place where the problems of time and human fallibility are more or less resolved. History does not reside solely in the past, but in the present, at a place like Little Gidding where the traditions of seventeenth-century high Anglicanism are kept alive.

A people without a history is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern of timeless moments. Time is viewed as unredeemable and problematic, whereas eternity is beautiful and true. Living under time's influence is a problem.

What humanity must do, according to Eliot, is understand the patterns found within the past in order to see that there is meaning to be found. This meaning allows one to experience eternity through moments of revelation. The poem is describing the eternalness of the present and how history exists in a pattern.

JungMi seemed to have understood the importance of the present and how moments and memories capture eternities...

"Compared to reality, time moved slower for us when we were enjoying our day. Unlike the people around us, it feels like we have all the time in the world in this moment."