The Call to Adventure

Despite my predilection for helping, caring, and teaching, I come from less than one might expect. You can’t pour from an empty cup they say, but I try, nonetheless. My origins for this story stem from birth, if not before, and yet I reside not in the plot of an old book series far from finished but in the prelude of something new. I have tended to reflect on my life in narrative form. It suits me for some reason, even though I am not nearly as read as those who have led more significant lives. The thought of my memories and experiences being neatly confined to chapters, books, series etc. is a comforting one. It keeps me grounded in the humility of incompleteness by granting the image of some grand design leading me to an extraordinary finish. I can see my character flaws and the arcs of growth, failure, and redemption as important, normal, necessary, and most of all fascinating. I see myself in others, others in myself, and inspiration and emotional truth in the fictional stories of the self-assured as well as the critically disturbed. The only problem with this mindset is that there is no grand design. Despite what you may see or how others may carry themselves, we are all flailing recklessly if not aimlessly in the void of nihilism until we die. Hopefully we find something of value along the way.

It is the only true problem, but it is certainly a big one, the big one really. How do we progress our story from where we are flawed novitiates, to the part where we are old and wise with tales of glory and sacrifice of a life well lived, without an author writing the story for us with a clearly laid out plot? Sure, there would be obstacles and enemies and heart ache but there would also be allies and mentors and most importantly we could take comfort in the fact that every story has a good ending. If we are the protagonist surely, we defeat the great evil, save the world, find love, and settle down in the peace of our victory allowing the next book to take up the mantle that is this world’s avarice for stories. We feel the obstacles, oh do we feel these damned obstacles, but where’s the rest? It is as if we are one of the many books started and given up on 10 pages in. Maybe we have some vague outline or thematic rubric to follow but if they aren’t writing, when does the story happen? Well, the tragedy is that it doesn’t have to.

That is how it goes for many, if not most, in this world. The idea of laying out the specifics would carry more sorrow than I can handle but we are all painfully aware of the darkness in the world, the untimely death and unnecessary suffering of the innocent, the erosion of the benevolent actions of some by the overwhelming ignorance and greed of the powerful. We can only do the best we can to assure some semblance of a fulfilled existence in the time we happen to have. Scream at the heavens all you wish, it can be cathartic if nothing else, but there isn’t anyone there. At least no one who both cares, and can do anything about it. Surely if they could help you find a job, or undo that awkward joke you told, they would have prioritized the genocide of starving children. So if there is no divine author, who then do you blame for your dismal story? Satan. No not really, but could you imagine if I was serious? That being said, there is some philosophical connections made about what the mythological figure of Lucifer represents and who is really in control of your story. Because that person is of course, you.

However, before I pretend to have some authority to preach about how you can or even if you should change your life, I am going to walk myself through the process and see what it means for me. If nothing else, I can get a better grasp at my philosophies and capacity to grow as I attempt to write my story with intent. In all honesty, I am only vaguely aware of the way this is supposed to go. I could sit and study adamantly until I am certain of the proper way to walk, or I could just start walking. I can always change direction once I am going but the one thing I can’t do is prove I will get anywhere sitting still. So what is the first chapter in this story of my life? Just like every heroine before me, I start from humble beginnings. But I know that. For now, and for a bit of fun later as a flashback, I won’t bore you with details of being homeless, exhausted, frustrated, alone, and holding on to a bit too much of self-loathing and judgments of others. Instead, I will jump right into the part I am trying to write right now, at this very coffee shop on the corner of Capitol and Legion. That next part is the Call to Adventure. In this part of the Hero’s Journey something is supposed to shake up the comfortable world of the protagonist and push them toward a series of trials until they rectify the problem thrust upon them. At least I think that’s how it works. Again, I haven’t studied too much yet. But that’s what I am using to scribble out this part.

What dramatic event is going to shake up my world? Politics. Now I did take a poli sci class in college and even won a debate single handedly against 4 or 5 adults at the age of 17 with a position I actually disagreed with. Not because I was right, but like any debate, I sounded right. Politics are unfortunately that simple. You can enjoy politics because of what it means to be the arbiter of change in the world, but no one wants it to be the reason they have to take action. It is never good when that is the motivation. That’s because it isn’t just politics, it is Fascism. Yay. If I don’t figure this out, I could very well die and or be tortured in the next couple of years and if I can’t escape it, I want to at least feel like I tried to live the life I know I deserve. So truth be told, while I gave myself 2 options, I don’t actually have time to study. I wish I did, I think, but I can’t. I mean, I’ll do that too on the side, but I have to start the work now even if I am wrong or fail. And that work brings me here, to Olympia the capitol of Washington.

Now I’ll pretend to know what you’re thinking. “She went to Olympia to lobby politicians or some other political activist work, right?” Wrong. I did for a moment join a universal healthcare initiative, and a mutual aid project, and even wrote up a 2-year plan for my own organization but I didn’t have the capacity to make that work from where I was with what I had, which was kind of nowhere with nothing. Truly I was spreading myself too thin and didn’t have a proper direction let alone a stable foundation, e.g. a home, to build from. I looked at what I wanted to try and accomplish in the next few years, and for health insurance reasons, I had to at least 60 miles north and Olympia just made the most sense. This city is wonderful to me. It’s got all the grunge of a big city with a niche community to feel like a small town. A clash of income classes bringing the comfort of riches with the humanity of poverty and an overwhelming wave of unapologetic progressivism makes this feel like the perfect place to call home while I work on addressing the basic human needs of spirituality, communal integration, and personal empowerment.

Now I can’t take all the credit, or at least it isn’t as simple as I, because there was something calling me to Olympia and I have yet to figure out exactly what it is. Is it the fact that it’s the state capitol, as the seat of power and change? Is it the one vague memory I have of a capitol building I am pretty sure was the Temple of Justice that was like wandering a medieval castle? Is it the name reminiscent of heroes of old all too convenient to ignore for the seat of this new religious idea? I prefer to think it is something a bit deeper. Something quieter than even the subtle flavors of theme and attribute we find ourselves gravitated toward. I believe it is the gravity itself. Not the actual gravity as one of the four fundamental physical forces, but one that is just as indecipherable. One so weak that it almost frays the mind when trying to prove its existence despite the obvious nature of its power and impact. Just as the electromagnetic forces that allow our tiny bodies to overcome the pull of the entire planet, our physical selves so easily overcome the quiet voice of our ethereal souls. There is definitely something there, deep within us, guiding us with whispers of resonance that we can’t quite make out but feel its presence. These whispers tell us where to go and what to do by giving us a feeling, a vibe if you will, that lays deeper than anything. These whispers of purpose are what is trying to help you write your story, but we keep telling them off like Clippy when we are certain we know what we are doing. But I will do my best here on to not ignore it. I am finally accepting this call to adventure, and if all goes well, success or failure, the journey itself will define my life in a way in which I can leave this life with no further regrets.