"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" is the inscription above the gates of Hell in Dante's Divine Comedy. It's an inscription meant to chill the reader to the bone. But in this book, hell is not simply a place for punishment. Touring hell helps Dante to understand his position and the choices he made. It's a place to address regrets, fears, and failures. It's a place to learn about life.
Last night, I had a dream about Rodin's The Gates of Hell, well, the reproduction in Philly. The dream started by standing on the sidewalk looking at daffodils swaying in the breeze on the Ben Franklin Parkway, and ended with walking through the gates of hell with someone who is sort of Virgil-like to me. That might be stretching it to fit into this narrative, but it is someone I can trust with vulnerabilities and who has helped me learn more about my humanity. My idle thoughts on the train this morning were about the Divine Comedy and the various layers of hell, which is where my mind was when I put on this album. And quite honestly, The Will to Live felt like that journey through hell and emergence on the other side with renewed purpose in life.
Like Dante, how often do we lose ourselves in the metaphorical "dark woods" when we stray from our paths? Yet, being lost isn't the end; it's the beginning. Sometimes, we must admit that the path is unclear when starting a journey. And sometimes, that journey is hell. There are many times in life that we need to navigate our own personal infernos so that we are not destroyed or consumed by them but leave a changed person. Sure, fire can be used to burn us, but fire can also be used to forge and shape us.
It takes courage to be alive and "the will to live" to move forward despite our fears or worries, despite the metaphorical burns we've sustained. After listening to the album, I did a quick search and saw that the death of a bandmate inspired it. It makes sense—the duality of personal agony and the renewing feeling of being alive come through when you listen to it.
So I sit in 2025, thinking about how a sculpture commissioned in 1880, inspired by an epic poem published in 1321, featuring a Roman poet born in 70 BCE, reminds me of a rock album released in 2022. The human condition hasn't changed in all that time. This album tells about those conditions through the lyrics and music. In his epic poem, the Aeneid, Virgil tells us, "The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labor lies." Life is still like that. Those words are true 2050 years later. Those words are evidenced in this album.
I hope you all have people in your lives who you can rely on to be your personal Virgils. People who can offer guidance so that "you'll never walk alone again" through life's trials and tribulations. And I hope you can use your experiences, even miserable ones, to renew your appreciation for your existence, to restore your will to live.
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