Thursday, April 8, 2010

The Longest Journey

I was never attached to that great sect
Whose doctrine is that each one should select

Out of the world a mistress or a friend,

And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend

To cold oblivion, - though it is the code

Of modern morals, and the beaten road

Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread,

By the broad highway of the world – and so

With one sad friend, perhaps a jealous foe,

The dreariest and longest journey go.

-- Percy Bysshe Shelley, Epipsychidion (1821)


Certainly it has been a long journey -- perhaps even from the time of the last post to this one (ha!). I really have been busy trying to get through my first year of college well enough, and of course in the meantime I have been going on trying to get my head 'round everything as I go....

But! A highlight of this period is that I have been reading a really fascinating (albeit slow, let's be honest here) book by the great 20th century novelist E. M. Forster, titled The Longest Journey. The main character of the book, named Rickie, is a young college student at Cambridge who really doesn't know what he wants to do in life. He receives many pressures from his friends and distant relatives, all persuading him to take up something practical, but he can't really see anything in it for him. What he really is talented at is his writing -- or, at the very least, if not talented, it is his hobby and passion.

Rickie's had problems. Not really things happening with him, but rather things happening to him. As a kid, his parents had troubles. His life was in constant flux...a dad always gone, a mother who had to play both roles as a parent; both of whom would no longer be with him as time went on. He grows up and professes to hate no one -- but we can see. His ultra-sensitivity makes itself quite clear as the novel proceeds...he truly is a romantic, but a tragic one at that. To those who wish to read the novel, I won't go too much further into detail, except to say that his life is given new direction -- not by him, but again to him. And he accepts that as his fate.

Well, if it's not obvious by now, I'll say it -- Rickie is me. Rarely if ever have I identified so much with a fictional character so much, and he is right where I am -- at the crossroads in life. What are his passions? Rickie doesn't know. Or perhaps he does not want to know. What are my passions? I do not know. Or do I, perhaps, not want to know? Would the truth be too much to bear?

I cannot say, really. I only know myself to a certain extent -- there are things of which I will search my whole life for, but in the end there shall be aspects I will never know. In Rickie's and in my case, choosing something to do for the rest of your life is a daunting task. Both of us would much rather explore the world, dawdling and philosophising, than make the choice. But we must. We know we must. And I know I must. Like Rickie, I would much rather be sincere than serious any day! But is sincerity in career such a tragically unattainable goal?

I just hope that, unlike Rickie, I can choose my own path...before it is chosen for me.

~/~

Here are two songs that I feel are very at home with this post....

Trapt -- Product of My Own Design
Kevin Renick -- Up in the Air