LITERARY JOURNEYS

When we think about a journey, we think about going from one place to another, a displacement of sorts which initiates loss as much as gain. We often forget about the journey once we arrive, believing that arriving at the destination is the most important reason for taking it in the first place. But what if the journey itself is the thing? What if the destination has nothing to offer, and the travel we take to get there is the prize?

If we think about literature in this way, we do not trouble ourselves with getting to the end. Instead, we enjoy each moment as it passes without care or concern for what happens afterward. Once we close the book, the journey is ended. And once the journey is ended, only memories are left to us. If we think about life this way, we do not trouble ourselves with its end, but focus only on its present, its immediate and now, and all the pleasure the current moment brings us.

I challenge you in this class to embrace the now of the journey, and all that it gives you in the moment. Forget about the fruit it will bear in the future, for the now is about planting the seeds, and without them there is no fruit.