Remembrance of Things Past

Me in the Pyrenees in the fall of 1985

"I see aspects of what I know are of my true personality dancing around me 

as shadows from a candle flame.  But, I have yet to discover the key 

that will let the real Joe Broom out, that will permit me to see and become one 

with the person who is generating all the shadows I see dancing on the walls."

So I wrote in my journal in December 1985, a month after I returned home from my mission to France.  

I have recently started going through my journals, commencing upon my return home from my mission.  During my last two months in France, when I was stationed in Pau, I went through a period of deep introspection.  This introspection continued when I arrived home and started putting my real life back together.

One of the last pictures of me taken in France, a month before I wrote these journal entries.

Upon reviewing my journal from this period, I was reminded of my brief love affair with Literature.  "I'm reading Narcissus and Goldmund by Herman Hesse right now," I wrote on December 19th, "and it's stimulating my thinking.  I liked a passage of a dialogue between the two, where Narcissus is telling Goldmund:

'I am superior to you only in one paint: I'm awake, whereas you are only half-awake, or completely asleep sometimes.  I call a man awake who knows in his conscious reason his innermost unreasonable force, drives and weaknesses and knows how to deal with them.  For you to learn that about yourself is the potential reason for your having met me.  In your case, mind and nature, consciousness and dream world like very far apart.  You've forgotten your childhood; it cries for you from the depths of your soul It will make you suffer until you heed it.'"

I then wrote:  "Does this apply to me?  I wonder ..." Duh.

Four days later, I wrote:  "It's so wonderful how I have come to love literature, mainly because I see in literature that I am not mad - that others have lived through the same experiences as have I.  When I read a passage in a book that speaks to my heart, it's as if someone says, 'You're ok, go ahead.  You're on the right track.' These are the feelings I had when I read the following passage [from Narcissus and Goldmund]:

"It was shameless how life made fun of one; it was a joke, a cause for weeping!  Either one lived and let one's senses play, drank full at the primitive mother's breast - which brought great bliss but was no protection against death; then one lived like a mushroom in the forest, colorful today and rotten tomorrow.  Or else one put up a defense, imprisoned oneself for work and tried to build a monument to the fleeting passage of life - then one renounced life, was nothing but a tool; one enlisted in the serve of that which endured, but one dried up in the process and lost one's freedom, scope, lust for life.  That's what happened to Master Niklaus. 

"Ach, life made sense only if one achieved both, only if it was not split by this brittle alternative!  To create, without sacrificing one's senses for it.  To live, without renouncing the nobility of creating."

Before I continue with my journal entry, it struck me as I read this passage how prophetic these words were for me ... 

"I have often reflected that I myself seem to be a dual personality," I wrote.  Continuing:

"There is the thinker in me who is very cautious, very conventional and very removed.  This side of me has been dominant since early adolescence. [Note to file:  Why?]  On the other hand, I know that there is an artist in me, he who wishes to abandon himself to creative forces.  But, this person is terribly undernourished and afraid.  Every now and then, he gasps for air and he manages to stay alive. 

"Many of my struggles to this date have been caused by conflict between these two forces within myself.  As Goldmund states, however, it is seemingly impossible to strike a balance between the two.  I am, however, determined to make an effort.  I am determined to make a conscientious effort to nourish the artist inside of me ..."

Sigh.