This will be a personal post. It’s been an amazing week. I wrapped up my term of study on Tuesday, and I did pretty well. It was not my best term, but I am proud of my mark in advanced micro economics. My prof, A. Kessler, ran a tough course, and I put in a lot of work towards understanding the material. On the other hand, econometrics was challenging, and I never really felt comfortable with the material or with my effort. Glad the term is done; it’s a big relief.
However, the more momentous moment of the week was when a close friend reflected to me the reality of my actions and way of being over the last six weeks or so. I didn’t quite understand what was going on at first, but it did begin a process of deep introspection. The following day, feeling a bit unsure of what to do, I pursued a few whims without much regard for outcomes or motivation. The first was that I would go and see a matinee. I headed off down to Tinseltown without looking at the listings. I settled on The Road, an adaptation of a Cormac McArthy novel.
The movie itself is very bleak and grim; it’s a post apocalyptic tale where nothing grows and people scavenge for existence from the detritus of a world that has moved on. Some people have taken up cannibalism, like I said, a very grim movie. Nevertheless there were some strong moments of resonance for me. In particular the two main characters, a father and son, often spoke of ‘carrying the fire’. In a world that had fallen into darkness and despair, they stuck to their morals and were determined to live and to survive, but without forgetting their humanity. In this way, they struggle and seek a place where the world had not grown so cold and dark as to stamp out all life.
This image of ‘carrying the fire’ really stuck with me. And then it showed up in my dreams that night. In my dream I was in a dark cavern with a few other people, I’m not sure who they were. We were on a gravel island, surrounded by lava flow. We all were concerned about the heat of the lava, and so in order to contain it, we would shove mounds of the island into the flow. The gravel would cover up the lava, temporarily lessening the heat. But eventually the lava would absorb the gravel and the heat would be renewed. It was a bit of a Sisyphean task, and although their was plenty of gravel on the island, it would not last indefinitely. There was no urgency or fear, but just a sense that the heat of the lava was uncomfortable.
It didn’t take long for me to take meaning from this dream. I had been covering up my own internal fire, denying my internal truth and what I must bring to the world. I get shivers just thinking about it. I am excited to reconnect with my ‘fire’, I feel a deep gratitude to all my close friends who have lent me their strength and reflections over the last little while. I am off to Toronto for the holidays and I’ll have some time to catch up with family there and enjoy their company.
