But metaphorically, too; this winter also featured, for me at least, heartbreak, frustration, etc. Part of that was personal; part of that was once again being in grad school, where I was reminded that they really make you want it, for I already knew what many younger grad students don't yet, that even if you get a crappy job right out of college that's still better than actually being in college.
That having all been said, however, I also learned long ago that all this is just the price you pay to actually live life.
For a friend of mine recently described his perplexity, as he had taken a Church assignment to reach out and visit young single adults in surrounding communities, and invite them all to regional events we were hosting. He himself is a very sociable, outgoing, extroverted individual, one who just naturally assumes that everyone would be excited to hear about activities in the area as he was, as though the only reason people hadn't come before is due to simple ignorance that stuff was happening.
But of course, there was nary any excitement at all as he visited these outlying towns, as all of his in-Church presentations were met mostly with shrugs and polite thanks for dropping by. Not only was he baffled by their lack of enthusiasm, but also by their sheer lack of ambition generally. "A lot of them still live at home," he exclaimed, "Or only work these part-time, go-nowhere jobs, or have never even been away to college! I don't get it, if you were stuck in some po-dunk small town in the middle of nowhere, wouldn't you be excited to get out more?"
"Ah, but that's just the thing!" I responded, suddenly remembering all those very same folks I knew growing up back in rural Washington--many of whom are still there for all I know, "These people are stuck in some po-dunk small town in the middle of nowhere precisely because they aren't excited to get out more!"
It's a sort of Faustian bargain they've made with some lackadaisical devil you see, the particulars of which promise that they will never have to suffer any sort of passionate pain, no soul-searing heartache, crushing disappointment, or abject tragedy; all they have to do instead is put up with a sort of quiet desperation, a general and unchallenging malaise and ennui, sans highs or lows, to stay in this kind of perpetual ambition-less limbo wherein all the days just sort of blur together without doing or seeing or experiencing anything all that noteworthy--a comfort zone, in other words.
Mephistopheles comes quietly to these Dr. Faustuses and offers them not immortality, not total knowledge or true love or great power or what have you, no, that's not the deal with the devil at all! The greatest temptation, the fiercest seduction, the final trial, is the promise of staying in their comfort zone. And boy do they take it.
Now, all that having been said, I'm not currently where I want to be in my life either--BUT, I am moving, I am trying, I do have goals and dreams and ambitions that I am working towards, and already I've seen many wondrous things in my life and had awesome adventures, with the hope of more to come. I have both metaphorically and literally been on mountain peaks. But I've been in the depths, too. Such is the price you pay to live life, to break this Faustian deal with the devil.
These were once but cliches to me, but now I wonder.
In the mean time, though it has been a long, cold, lonely winter, though it feels years since it's been here:
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