I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul
-William Ernest Henely
The Guardian
On February, 11th, 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from the Robbin Island Prison. He hadn't spent a year in quarantine, he'd spent twenty seven years in jail-10,052 days- to be exact.
It was there, inside those walls, among his fellow prisoners, that Mandela would first recite a poem that I've held very close to me lately- the poem-William Henley's Invictus- meaning unconquerable.
The words of Invictus and its stoic conviction would inspire Mandela to change the course of history. Today-it inspires me to maintain steadfast faith and integrity in the face of uncertainty.
LA Times: Nelson Mandela visits his jail cell in 2013. [“Every day is for all practical purposes like the day before: the same surroundings, same faces, same dialogue, same odor, walls rising to the skies and the ever-present feeling that outside the prison gates there is an exciting world to which you have no access,” Mandela wrote in the 1987 letter. ]
During his incarceration at Robbin Island, Mandela didn't just survive, he lived to the fullest capacity that he could- he dreamed, plotted, he imagined a better world. He fathered his children from afar, writing them hundreds of letters, reminding them to maintain hope.
Mandela refused to be languished by prison walls and so he painted within them. Time had not escaped Mandela, he had conquered time, perhaps putting more mind and soul into amelioration than any free man. The "menace of those years" as Henley wrote, found Mandela- "unafraid", his dignity uncompromised.
Just like Andy Dufresne did in Shawshank Redemption -Mandela, "crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side".
Only four years after his release, in the spring of 1994, Mandela would become the first Black President of South Africa. The same grit and strength that steered Mandela through prison would compel him to mend a fractured nation.
In 1995- the words of Invictus would resound again, this time in Ellis Park Stadium, through the abounding spirit of South African Rugby. Led by captain Francois Pienaar, South Africa's rugby team, the Springboks, and all the fervor they served to ignite would weld a segregated nation into unity, marking the end of Apartheid.
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The words of Invictus cry out through history's darkest hours. Throughout World War II they echoed through the walls of the British Parliament. They'd echo there again after the 7/7 London bombings.
The words of Invictus serve to remind us that our darkest hours rise up to become our finest, our scorchingly brightest, an incandescent lightbulb forcing us to see, forcing progress- even if it’s trudged, forcing us to muster the strength and courage we perhaps didn't know we had.
Still resounding thirty years later is Mandela's unwavering spirit and stalwart resolution. In America's finest hour-these words can help us keep faith.
Fifty years prior, Winston Churchill' referenced Invictus in his famous House of Commons speech- in what would later be known as Britain's "finest hour". "Never, never surrender". Invictus would also headline the Daily Mirror following the 2005 London bombings, "Bloody but Unbowed- our spirit will never be broken".
The very same poetic justice that inspired Mandela has inspired me in this critical hour. It has inspired me to be deliberate instead of biding my time, and it's inspired me to look inward -to find my inner strength.
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Right now it seems easier than ever to abjure faith in ourselves. The "audacity of hope" isn't easy, and in the words of Elliis Boyd Red a sometimes "dangerous thing."
But it's untiring hope that is our sledgehammer in our darkest hours.
Whenever I feel caged, hopeless, or stuck I think of how Mandela surmounted his prison walls with an indomitable spirit.He refused to let the darkness mar his growth, instead- he used it as a force for growth.
It’s when I want to hang my head the most that I choose to straighten up and keep pushing. I can thank Nelson Mandela for inspiring that sort of hardened faith that will propel me through any headwind I face.
"Get busy living, or get busy dying."
"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.
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.
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.
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."
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul."
