Interesting things happen here in Chicago

Just as I stepped outside the building after work this evening...

Invictus

I had heard the name, and knew Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon were in it, but beyond that, I hadn't cared to know much about it. I rarely get to watch movies these days, in spite of subscribing to Netflix (both online AND via a Roku player I bought) which has essentially become a monthly donation to them.

So when this movie started playing on one of my flights last week, I reluctantly switched my headphone connection from iPod to the armrest port and started watching. I wasn't too keen on it anyway -- it mostly served as noise-canceler as I tried to read a book over the screams of kids and loud adults around. But I did catch a recurring reference to an old English poem that continued to linger in my mind long after I disembarked. And then the question hit me! Where did the movie's title come from?

It is from this poem, written in 1875, by William E. 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 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.

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.

It is never too late to find inspiration. And it's never too much.