I've come upon a new struggle over the past month or so, that I've really been dealing with my whole life. People talk about different things being right and wrong, and different factors influencing that. What matters is what you do. What matters is what you meant to do. What matters is the journey; what matters most is why you're doing it. And, well it's a combination of all of these and more, of course.
After reading and thinking Mark Jarman's Unholy Sonnets, I could finally put my finger on something that I've always taken into consideration. I've used this to consider the nobility and redemption of tragic heroes, and to evaluate whether to turn right or left. At the same time, I've cultivated a suspicion of my own gut reactions and first impressions at the same time as I over-value them.
The word that struck me, while this brings it sharply out of context, was "easily." Part III of Jarman's book of poetry dialogues the struggle of being alive in this world, in the face of Christ's resurrection, still often forgetting it. It's about the struggle. The saints struggled with sin; they struggled with men and devils; they died painful deaths. Life is meant to be painful and hard. Paul says so, too. We need those trials to get that perseverance and faith and all that other jazzy stuff. The hard-working wise man gets his grub, and the sluggard's field is full of thistles.
I've been caught between this perfection of living, the triumph of going the hard way and still getting it, and the inclination to just lay back and let it all wash over and over.
Any time I think about things, my conclusion is that the easy way must be the worse way. There has to be something immoral about it. I suppose it comes partly from my delight in a good challenge--although too big of a challenge will bring about despair. It's more fun to do things the hard way, not the accepted way. You learn, figure things out. It's partly a stubbornly blind independence, I guess. If I'm in a specific situation, I don't want to cop out. I don't want to give up; that's about as low as you can go. You're weak. If you give it a shot, you tried.
I digress.
I suppose the easiest (see, there it is again...oh man) way to explain this is by an aspect of my decision making that I've discovered recently and has landed me where I am at Houghton. I'm an English and Education major. Sure, I picked that because, although I like math and science, I could communicate life-important ideas to kids by teaching English, like people did for me. I could do that. I enjoyed the challenge that numbers and theories gave me, but I think the amount of work it promised in college intimidated me. I guess I thought I was taking an easier route.
Here's what I've realised. I love the theory of literature, and the wonderful ideas it brings up and faces people with, but I struggle with language. I don't know if I always have, but I do now. I was a pretty good reader the second time I did Kindergarten, but I guess it's cuz all the other kids hadn't really done it enough before. I remember having the hardest time reading things. Becoming bored or frustrated because I could stick with it. Did I have an attention problem? Retention? Memory? I think my developmental psych tells me I was just different. Is that a cop out?
So I still have a hard time reading. I know it. The result: sometimes I don't even read, cause I just assume I won't finish and it's not worth it. Now that's a cop out. So I have to work harder. Keep at it. Stop saying I can't; say I can to everything--cause that's what Christ can give me, right? In him I can do anything?
Right. So the many times that I'm not in his will, I can't do anything. That's simple enough.
Where do draw the line? That's not the only criterion! There is the Bible, I know that--but people still get tattoos, eat pork. Other people are doing it? That must be the easy way: take Frost's "road less traveled by;" make all the difference.
Christian, in the Pilgrim's Progress, takes the straight and narrow. It's the hard way. He didn't lay down on the downy grass. He didn't run away from the great dragon. He kept walking; he fought and won. He died and was taken to heaven, never having ceased his struggle.
Clearly there are other factors, but this is what stands out to me now. There is a right way of doing things--sometimes it's a bit harder, like washing the dishes well or sorting laundry. It makes things easier, but it's harder or takes more energy [I don't think I've ever accounted for time spent. just saying].
It is immediately, in a sort of pragmatic sense, easier to stay here after I graduate. To follow the natural course of tradition, and wallow through student teaching, get a job out of college, start my grad school, and settle down here in the US so I can pay off my debts--oh then I buy a house and a car...
It's harder to go somewhere else--I have to do research, travel, arrange documents, adapt/re-adapt to culture and expectations. It's harder to quit school and look for something else to do. I've never done that. It's harder to leave Houghton and do college in Brazil. Or just do Grad school there. It's unfriendly ground, who knows what kind of support I'll get. I have support systems in place here.
It's easier to keep dating and avoid the pain of a breakup. It's harder to stay together and work out the problems from thousands of miles away. It's easier to break up and turn away, take on someone new.
It's easier to tickle my brain and try to get some of this down than to write my paper. It's easier to stay up late than to wake up early. Or sleep early.
