On the path...

Spent the week contemplating for the infinite time the role that my late son had in my life. During this period, coincidentally, I re-read Maugham's "The Razor's Edge."

I read it the first time not long after finishing college, at a time when I thought I wanted to be an environmental lawyer and activist (Oh the ulcer's I'd have today!). Unknown to me at the time, this book was to have a profound influence on me, fertilizing the creative seeds I'd long patronized as being mere hobbies.

The second time I read it, I'd just moved to Japan. It fed my desire for travel, of baptizing myself with foreign soil. Prior to this move, I'd been rallied by some words I'd read, though I forget the exact quote and can't properly attribute it. It was some long dead figure's call to arms: "The end of idle contemplation draws near; now is the time for action."

Reading the book once again this week, I was struck by how it has gone from being a source of motivation to almost a map of my growth as a man. The India sections talk about having "a passionate craving for Reality." In my twenties, I'd assumed this path to God was through knowledge. After coming to Asia, I thought it was through experience. Now I strongly believe that it is through love.


On the turntable: Miles Davis, "Seven Steps"