Coming from Elsewhere, and Now Headed That Way

[Image: “05a.WMATA.MetroCenter.WDC.8April2016,” by Elvert Barnes. (Found on Flickr, using it here under a Creative Commons license — thank you!)]

From whiskey river, just a few days ago:

At any particular moment in a man’s life, he can say that everything he has done and has not done, that has been done and not been done to him, has brought him to this moment. If he’s being installed as Chieftain or receiving a Nobel Prize, that’s a fulfilling notion. But if he’s in a sleeping bag at ten thousand feet in a snowstorm, parked in the middle of a highway and waiting to freeze to death, the idea can make him feel calamitously stupid.

(William Least Heat-Moon [source])

Well, yes. I guess that’s true — the gods know, How could I have been so stupid? is a question I’ve put to myself a thousand times. The problem with the question, in those words or others, is two-fold: (1) it’s always retrospective, as though one could have anticipated and prepared for every possible mishap or misstep over the course of decades of life; and (2) from a certain perspective, the Nobel Prize winners and great Chiefs themselves surely experienced “How could I be such a dope?” moments. To pluck one arbitrary bad moment from one life and set it alongside an arbitrary moment of glory from another really doesn’t make for a fair comparison — nothing to beat oneself up about or, for that matter, nothing to swell one’s head…

Coincidentally, this comes during a week when I cracked open a book I’ve had for a long time — its acquisition probably triggered, now that I think about it, by a whiskey river-inspired Friday blog post. Early on in the book, back to back, we find a couple of germane passages. The first is a story of an old friend, Nasruddin (the name spelled variously with one or two d’s):

It’s 4 A.M. Nasruddin leaves the tavern and walks the town aimlessly. A policeman stops him. “Why are you out wandering the streets in the middle of the night?” “Sir,” replies Nasruddin, “if I knew the answer to that question, I would have been home hours ago!”

(Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks [source])

…almost immediately after which, we read:

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,
and I intend to end up there. This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I’ll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I’m like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth? Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

(Rumi, ibid.)