A
Life Journey
"Whether
I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be
held by anybody else, these pages must show."[1]
I
have had many specific goals in my life. Unfortunately, none of them have
persisted for very long. The record holder was a desire to become an
environmentalist after watching an IMAX movie about the Amazon Rainforest in
first grade. That career choice lasted all the way up to sixth grade, a
definite record of perseverance in my life. Looking back at my lofty ambition,
I am unsure if I really had the desire to achieve that career goal so much as I
enjoyed being able to use an elevated vocabulary word when asked by my fellow
third grade classmates what I wanted to be when I grew up. It’s not that I have
ever lacked passion in my life. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. I have always
been so interested in so many things that to settle on one particular thing has
always seemed to be treasonous. Perhaps I’ve felt like Jane Eyre when she said
"It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility:
they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it."[2] Still though, I have never felt comfortable
with not having a specific endpoint. Society does not treat kindly those who
cannot name their life’s ambitions in neat, orderly phrases. If a person fails
to do so, society tends to call them slackers or diagnose them with Attention
Deficit Disorder. I have plenty of theories on why this is so, but none of them
do much to help me answer the ceaseless question of “What are you going to do
now?”
The way I finally found solace in the lack of one specific goal was a close examination of a casual hobby of mine: I like maps. I wouldn’t go as far as calling maps a passion. I do not have superior map reading skills nor do I care about specialty maps concerning topography or other more involved skills. I simply like to have maps around so that I can plan imaginary adventures and mark road trips that I have taken with red tipped map pins. I eventually discovered the secret behind this hobby was not that I had fallen in love with maps per say, but instead I had fallen in love with the concept of a journey. I suppose that many people view life as a destination. For example, their goal in life is to become a doctor or a lawyer. These are both very noble pursuits. However, as Ram Dass explains, we are “in the habit of defining ourselves narrowly and defensively” to the point that we become “less flexible, less versatile,” and “inevitably end up being less helpful.”[3] Becoming a doctor or a lawyer can be achieved in less than ten years. After that, the destination may morph to a desire to be the best lawyer or doctor. However, those destinations cannot be reached and striving for them will probably only last another forty years. Now what? The only destination that we are all speeding towards in life with absolute efficiency is death and who wants that to be a goal? Miller states that once a person “is aware of all the other possible attitudes toward life,” they will “cancel one another out and leave him with a mere empty sense of infinite potentiality.”[4] Once all destinations and plans of action to get there cancel each other out, that “mere empty sense of infinite potentiality” can be the most frightening thing a person can experience. It implies that the world would survive perfectly fine without us. Any goal we accomplish or any change we make, no matter how large, is just an attempt to fill an infinite space that will always end up being unfillable. We are very unnecessary creatures. The only way we have given ourselves purpose is by creating tasks and jobs for ourselves. We have given ourselves religion to say that we are needed participants in the Divine. We have given ourselves heroes to say that we can save what we hold dear. We have given ourselves confidence and self-esteem by building on top of our infinite space because as humans we need things that are concrete and have a spelled out purpose. However, in all these situations, we slightly and sometimes completely disillusion ourselves as to our actual place in the world.
When
I finally accepted the reality that the world can function properly without
Jessica Foreman helping it, I initially lost all sense of worth. During
self-reflection though, I remembered the maps I had hanging all over my walls
and that inspired me. The simple word “existence” had never had such a positive
ring in my ear. I saw that there was
so much to see and so many people to come into contact with on a life journey.
I could test everything I had ever thought and learned in the real world.
Whitman said it best in his poem Song of
the
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,
I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.[5]
Essentially, my vision of
leadership in my own life is to pursue my journey wherever it will lead with as
much passion and zest as possible. I will throw myself among others to offer a
different perspective while I will inevitably soak up their perspectives as
well.
Figure 1: Jack Kerouac's Journeys Throughout
"I like too many
things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to
another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to
offer anybody except my own confusion."[7]-Jack
Kerouac
My plan of action may initially seem
flawed. It could be compared to communism, beautiful on paper and a complete
failure in practice. To an extent, this is correct. If I simply followed my heart around “from one falling star to
another till I drop” as Kerouac puts it, I would never accomplish anything and
probably die homeless on the street. The aforementioned theme though is an
internal view of the world. John Ruskin illustrates that a chemist “defines his
mineral by two separate kinds of character; one external, its crystalline form,
hardness, luster” and “the other internal, the proportions and nature of its
constituent atoms.”[8] This example not only applies to minerals and
Gothic architecture, but also to my life. The inner nature of my journey will
produce viable outer affects and discoveries.
Figure 2: Lewis and
All of us
employed in preparing tools to build boats for our voyage[10].
-Meriwether Lewis
I would definitely enjoy hiking around meeting people for the rest of my life, but that particular aspect of a journey is just not practical one hundred percent of the time. We have needs in our lives and must maintain a certain level of stability or else we would go crazy. Marlow speaks about work in Heart of Darkness. He says “I don’t like work—no man does, but I like what is in the work, the chance to find yourself.”[11] This speaks true in my life as well. There are particular types of work that, while not exciting and enlightening one hundred percent of the time, do invigorate me and show me a part of my true self. I must be able to translate my journeys and philosophical thoughts into things that are concrete, things that I can actually achieve. One concrete experience that I hope to work toward is to teach in some form. Teaching requires me to review and test everything I plan on saying before it even comes out of my mouth. This is not a practice that I utilize on a daily basis, but teaching forces me to think about what I say and what I believe. I also find it exciting to introduce others to concepts that have had strong affects on my life. While I do not want to become simply a teacher, I hope to incorporate teaching into my journey. Sometimes, the simplicity of completing menial tasks can reduce stress in my mind. It gives me the opportunity to unclutter my mind at the same time I am uncluttering my desk or room. Pater believes though that “our failure is to form habits” because “after all, habit is relative to a stereotyped world.”[12] The goal then is to balance work and necessary habit with the ability to “grasp at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge” that will “set the spirit free for a moment.”[13]
Figure 3: Dante's Map of Heaven
“Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground.”[15]--Dante
It would be easy to say “Go forward in
your journey. Just keep walking.” I’m very tempted to do just that. However,
forward walking and forward thinking alone would not create a successful
journey. Instead, there are times when one has to look up and also inside themselves. There are certain aspects of my self that I must
improve in order to prepare myself for the journey ahead. One thing that I have
done since I was a child is to occasionally put undo pressure on myself
concerning my actions and character. During the dreaded junior high years, I
had several breakdowns from stress. I blamed my parents, my teachers, and my
friends for all pressuring me to be perfect. In actuality, no one was putting
pressure on me but myself. Dickens describes this type
of situation in a Tale of Two Cities:
“The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon
is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us; but, so far
we are pursued by nothing else.”[16]
In other words, as humans, our minds produce all these complications that seem
to be pursuing us and chasing us.
Actually though, we are pursued by our mind only. The realization that
the only frightening chaser is inside our own head allows us to calm it and
exercise control over ourselves. Once I realized this, I no longer blamed those
around me for the stress I felt. Instead, I took aim at the real issue and
began dealing with my inner stress in a way that released me and made me calm.
Figure 4: The World of Homer
‘Don't stay too long away from home,
leaving
your treasure there, and brazen suitors near;
they'll squander all you have or take it from you...'[18]
-Homer The Odyssey
Now, I suppose it’s necessary to
further clarify what I mean by journey. You may have garnered the opinion from
the maps and my previous discussion that I hope to spend my entire life
wandering around on a cross-country adventure. While I do hope that I have that
opportunity, the meaning of a journey to me extends beyond the physical world.
A journey also encompasses the ideas, beliefs, and esteems that are fostered in
your mind and soul. Miller writes in The
Disappearance of God that “spiritual adventures might be defined as so many
heroic attempts to recover immortality in a world of transcendence.”[19]
Miller calls them “spiritual adventures” and, in my mind, this means adventures
into your own personal thought processes and beliefs. Miller argues that we
take these journeys to recover immortality. While I’m flattered by this
possibility, it is not quite as I see it. My mind cannot grasp such elevated
concepts. However, I do feel that I am trying to recover some sense of loss
that I cannot define. Perhaps it is immortality that was lost at birth. Perhaps
it is the sense of peace I felt for a fleeting second yesterday. Either way,
these spiritual adventures and journeys always lead me to a path of freedom. While
I may not be able to keep up a physical journey, constantly moving, my entire
life, I will be able to participate in a mental and spiritual journey that will
continue to allow me fluidity and freedom. In order to do so, I must allow for
change and growth around every corner of life.
Figure 5: MiddleEarth
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who
wander are lost;
The old that is strong
does not wither,
Deep roots are
not reached by frost.[21]
-Lord of the Rings
My entire life I’ve always wished for an
extremely clear sense of purpose that would lead me to a specific destination.
The novel Lord of the Rings is incredibly appealing to me. Frodo is
given a task. This task is not simple; it involves facing fear, hardship, and
death. Yet, the purpose in the book is clear. There are good guys and bad guys;
the ring must be destroyed or it will destroy everyone. Life for me has not
worked out to be so clear cut. I cannot provide the answer to my critics and my
loved ones alike who, for different reasons, question my path in life. However,
I can know that “in those moments” when I am not sure what my actions “have
really amounted to,” I can simply allow myself “to be touched by what” I have
seen.”[22] I can be touched by the lives that have come
into contact with my own, the places I have walked through the world, and the
moments that appeared out of nowhere and changed my perspective. I can simply
be satisfied that even if “there is no specific outcome to point to at all,” I
will still have “the feeling of having participated in something profound and
wonderful” that “does not lend itself to words or concepts.” I will have
experienced “revelation.”[23] In a world where everything under the sun has
been experienced, this “profound and wonderful revelation” is the most
beautiful hope I can ask to possess.
Wordcounts
Complete wordcount: 2,371
Completed paper without quotes: 1,723
Paper with quotes before additional words added: 1,847
