Why Prufrock?

T.S. Eliot's 'The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock', played in the background of my secondary school life.....The hazy years of rote learning, dodging bullys, bunking and soggy school lunches.  Though I have many memories of different events and happenings, my fondest memories are of sitting at the back of my English class during the winter months, peering at the teacher through the steam that had accumulated due to an overheated radiator and girls soaked to the skin from rolling around in the snow. The slow drone of the teachers voice coupled with the soaring temperatures, transported me to distant parts of my mind.  Though I was young, my mind was able to delve deep into the desolation that exists within the human civilization and thoughts like these made for melancholy days. But by no means were they bad memories, in fact the very opposite was true. The melancholia made for some striking thoughts and memories.  Thoughts of the life ahead in the "real world", thoughts of love and loves hopelessness ( as Hamlet, Othello and Westside story confirmed), sad thoughts of growing old and frail...all whirled around in my head as I tried to stay focused on the teachers words.  The enthusiasm of my teacher, a young beefy man in his 30's, led us to read a whole array of things both on and out of the curriculum.. Sci-fi novels reminiscent of star trek, dark pieces on young people exploring suicide and tales about lonely old ladies waiting to die.. Pretty somber stuff for your early teens, but definitely things that shape more interesting characters.   The first time I heard Prufrock, I thought "wow, that's what life's really like".  So many wishes, so many desires, yet so little courage to act upon any of them. The blur, the sighs, the stifled society, the jumble of the mind, the juxtapositions, the indecisiveness, the want and need for romance and joviality... the optimism quelled only by the sharpness of reality when realization hits that sometimes you have to accept who you are, the society your in and though your one person on the inside, your entirely different to the world outside.  Prufrock is a great summation of the human condition, the loneliness that can exist even when your surrounded by tonnes of people, the regrets we will always carry and our desire for time which we do not have or control. I can't adequately sum up all the feelings I attach to this piece, but whenever I read it or think about it a wave of nostalgia washes over me and I can't help but feel that time is running out and I'm growing old.