Nothing better illustrates the senselessness of the human condition than the poetry of T.S. Eliot, except perhaps the humble toil of our machines. Like us, robots are constantly seeking and striving for meaning. Observe as these hopeless automatons stave off death, fulfill their simple functions, and seek fleeting connections with other souls.
“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement.”
“After the torch-light red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and place and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience”
*
“At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting…”
“We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise.
In my end is my beginning.”
*
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.”
*
“They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.
But the man that is shall shadow
The man that pretends to be.”
*
“Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question….
Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’
Let us go and make our visit.”
*
“Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow”
