INVICTUS inspired me

Last night I hired INVICTUS from Blockbuster in town, the film that some say is about Mandela's new Rainbow Nation, and others say is just a rugby film.

Basically, Nelson Mandela is in his first term as the South African President, and he initiates a ventre to unite the apartheid-torn land: enlist the national rugby team on a mission to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup. It stars Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, directed by Clint Eastwood.

 I was disappointed with the first half of the film but at the end found myself really moved. I've been to South Africa, to the townships, and know a little of what life is like out there - but one thing that came out of watching this film was Mandela's notion that you have to be the master of your own fate - and at a time when so many people feel let down by society, their employer, their family, or they're fed up with their job or fed up of looking for a job, I think this poem is just worth reading.

INVICTUS

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 aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is ******, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms 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.

William Ernest Henley.