It’s their wrongness that kept these ideas alive. And would we have remembered “gather ye rosebuds” without the odd mistake of the “ye”? Probably not. If you look that passage up online, the ending thought is usually left out (even I forgot this part):Īnd yet if it hadn’t been wrongly translated as “seize” would we remember that line now? Probably not. That’s not the kind of man that Horace was. Don’t freaking grab the day in your fist like a burger at a fairground and take a big chomping bite out of it. Pluck the cranberry or blueberry of the day tenderly free without damaging it, is what Horace meant–pick the day, harvest the day, reap the day, mow the day, forage the day. What Horace had in mind was that you should gently pull on the day’s stem, as if it were, say, a wildflower or an olive, holding it with all the practiced care of your thumb and the side of your finger, which knows how to not crush easily crushed things–so that the day’s stalk or stem undergoes increasing tension and draws to a thinness, and a tightness, and then snaps softly away at its weakest point, perhaps leaking a little milky sap, and the flower, or the fruit, is released in your hand. Seize the day would be “cape diem,” if my school Latin serves. “Carpe diem” doesn’t mean seize the day–it means something gentler and more sensible. There are many such studies.Today I was reminded of this passage from Nicholson Baker’s wonderful book, The Anthologist:īut here’s the thing. According to one recent study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, involving more than 12,000 middle-aged men over a decade, those who exercised regularly lived significantly longer and healthier later on. We know, however, that a healthy lifestyle prolongs an active life until the end. Only about half of Americans exercise for at least 30 minutes three days a week, according to a recent survey of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. Too many people still abide by the carpe diem ethos, despite our significantly longer lives. What we haven’t done much about is improving our lifestyles. Who’s to say that 78.7 is our inevitable endpoint, though? Since Roman times, humans have elongated their timelines, largely by defeating the worst of communicable diseases. So, statistically speaking, I should have plenty of time left on the clock. In Horace, the phrase is part of the longer carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero, which is often translated as 'Seize the day, put very little trust in tomorrow (the future)'. The average American lifespan is now 78.7 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control. I’m thankful that I live in the 21st century. If I’d been alive a century ago, I would be not a middle-aged man, but an old man, anxiously awaiting death. Why not drink up? You only had a few years left, anyway.īy the Middle Ages, the average lifespan had increased to 40, except in the years of the plague, when most people who lived past childhood perished in their early 20s.īy 1900, the expected lifespan had risen to 47, my current age. At 25, you were, in a sense, an old man or woman. The thing is, in Roman times, life really was short. ![]() For many others, it means eat, drink and be merry. ![]() Tomorrow will bring who knows what? Death, inevitably.įor many, carpe diem means smell the roses, suck in life. Carpe diem means “seize the day” that is, live for today. ![]() It is a Roman saying, attributed to the poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace for short), who lived at a time of great turmoil in the Roman Empire. Lys upp ditt företag eller hem med HAPPY NEON Varje neonskylt från oss är ett konstverk 100 handgjort av glas eller LED material. It is, at once, the best phrase ever recorded and the worst. Americans live according to an ancient ethos, promulgated shortly before the first century A.D.: carpe diem.
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