joy them, because I do, very much. I love filmographies like Rudy that depict someone going after a dream when everyone else says it's senseless. I've lived my own version of that one and all it takes to reduce me to tears is a few bars of Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack -- even if they're only used in a commercial.
No, this morning I'm thinking about a quote by W. Somerset Maugham, who authored Of Human Bondage and The Razor's Edge: "What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably...have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature."
Maugham wanted to be a writer but, apparently, that wasn't the career path his family had envisioned. Having a speech disorder rendered the ministry out of the question, so he was sent to medical school. Although he appreciated what he'd learned about human nature from his education, after graduating he continued to write. By his comment he seems to be saying, had it not been for my stammer, I might have ended up doing something conventional. As it was, I became myself instead.
Curiously, to a certain extent I'm having a difficult time identifying with Maugham, at least literally. I can think of relationships I'm glad never blossomed, jobs I'm relieved I never took, relationships and jobs I'm grateful to have gotten out of, but not any one thing that prevented me from making a fatal mistake. Most of the time I've wished there had been something that stood in the way of my getting into situations I've had to extract myself from. I have an idea I'm not alone in this.
So, what's the solution? Maybe we have to rely on the accumulation of experience to do for us what a stammer did for him. That's a lot harder, because it means we have to understand what we've gone through and to do that, we can't pretend it's irrelevant because it feels unpleasant. Foresight is earned as well as learned and while it's not exactly a stammer, it can serve us just as well, if not better.
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Life is a classroom of learning. It's one that never stop's. Painful experiences are the load for all of us and they bring out out true nature. We become complainers and sour OR we develope a sense of humour and wisdom. We turn our scar's into star's. We learn from the hurt,get up brush ourselves off and continue on. Personally I would never wish to go back and re-live what I've been through. I look so much better now than I did then.(Yet older and weightier..LOL) I guess that's where faith steps in.....The Pilgrim must progress. Keep writing! (Take a Hug)
ReplyDeleteI wrote a comment which the computer obliterated....at least I think it did.. so, in brief. You touch my heart with your writing. The clssroom of life can be a hard one. Yet I always feel that without pain there is no gain. Years ago my mother gave me Corrie Ten Boom's book "The hiding Place" to read. I tried to get out of reading it as it seemed so sad but mum kept asking if I had. Finally I thought, I'll skim through it and learn enough to get her off my back. However, once I got hooked I had to find out the rest.This wonderful woman became my example for life along with Mother Teresa and Catherine Marshall.
ReplyDeleteHugs to you!
You're so right about the classroom of life being a hard course. It's definitely not for the faint-hearted, though none of us get to pick and choose whether to be in it or not. Some are less active students than others, but I don't think withdrawal is the answer. A person has to dive in, take risks, learn the hard way, and hopefully reflect on what's happened so as to do better each successive time at the blackboard. And it's hard to keep doing that, to keep on raising your hand and saying "call on me," because that's how we get hurt, but the alternative is to not live. I guess I'd rather risk the pain than miss out on the possibility of joy, you know?
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