This poem, Invictus by William Henley, reminds me of a story I once heard Sohrab Ahmari tell about Father Maximillian Kolbe, a Catholic priest who was imprisoned in Auschwitz. A prisoner had escaped from the concentration camp and, in retaliation, the camp commander sentenced 10 prisoners to death by starvation. One of the chosen men protested because he had a wife and children. Seeing this, Kolbe volunteered to go in his place. Ahmari described Kolbe as the “freest person in Europe” that day. And that is the truth.
Kolbe was not confined by the idea that he was a victim or that he had no control or power. Of all the people in the camp, he was the only one recognising he had a choice. The guards had a choice, the prisoners had a choice. The guards could choose between doing their jobs and not doing their jobs. There may have been terrible punishment for not doing their jobs, but it was still a choice.
Kolbe’s choice was between volunteering to die now in the hope of saving another (however short that salvation may be), or waiting it out in the camp hoping his time would never come. Many of us wouldn’t see this as a choice. But as a movie quoted in the West Wing says; “As if it matters how a man falls down,” to which the other responds, “when the fall is all that’s left, it matters a great deal.”
The choice, between being put to death and staying alive another day in the hope that one may be freed before being sentenced to death, is one that, hopefully, most of us will never face. But as we go through life we rarely get to choose the ideal option. Instead, life presents us with things that we do not want and it keeps from us many of the things we do want.
I woke up on my 35th birthday and wanted a child. Five years later, I’m single despite meeting a couple of men over the last years who I really thought I was going to be happy with and start a family with. It’s been painful. Very painful. So my choice now is to keep dating and continue to hope for the best, or to try to have a child alone. The ideal – starting a family with a man I adore – simply isn’t an actual option. And the truth is, there will be difficulty in life regardless of whether you chose A or B, and there will be joy on both paths too. Just different types of pain and different types of joy.
We all, always, have a choice. We may not always like the choices we are faced with, but it is in recognising that we have a choice that we find our power. We can rail against the choice itself and scream about how unfair it is that we don’t get to choose the ideal we want. But this turns us into victims. It disempowers. You can fight “the system” all you want, but high house prices that prevent you from buying are not going to fall, the right man isn’t going to appear tomorrow, and the government are still going to have the power to affect your life in ways you don’t like. Argue against it, but don’t be a victim. Don’t let your persecutors win.
Instead, we can be like Henley says. We can hold on to what we know is right, in full knowledge that we will be punished all the same. Yet we can choose that punishment knowing it is better than giving in. We can be bloodied, but in being bloodied we will be able to hold our heads high.
Kolbe knew this truth. He chose, willingly to go to his death that another might be saved even if only for a few days. He went to his death a captive, but free in his heart and mind.
To know this truth and to enact it are different things. This is why we need people like Kolbe and Mandela, to inspire us to be more than we ever thought we could be. To be righteous and dignified even in the face of horrendous punishment.
Sometimes that terrible punishment will not be doled out to us by other human beings directly but rather it is just how the cards have fallen in our life. When there is no-one around to blame for the way life has worked out, we can still end up feeling like a victim. In these times, we can see clearly that it is all about how we react to life circumstances that determines how good the quality of our life is.
The defiance in this poem is awe-inspiring. It sustained Mandela when he was in prison for decades. Somehow, he lived the words of this poem retaining his sense of peace and his sense of who he is despite repeated punishment. The strength of character to do that is astounding.
No matter what life throws at me, I will decide. When it seems there is no choice, I will rememberthere is a choice and I will be free, for you cannot imprison the one who choses to be there.
Invictus by William Henley
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.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried allowed.
Under the bludgeoning 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.
It matters not how straight the gait,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
