Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Canto 25
In Dante's 8th circle of hell, Dante depicts those who were thieves during their lives as continuously changing shape in their eternal state; men turn into snakes and snakes turn into men, in a constant metamorphosis of identity. Though I do not change my physical identity, and though I certainly don't feel like I'm in an inferno, I do find myself mentally shifting vocational shapes all the time. I live among bright, bold, brilliant people who do fascinating things with their lives. In many conversations with peers I find myself subconsciously imaging myself placed in their careers or on their educational trajectories. I ask myself, "How would it be to interview refugees in Mongolia? Be a volunteer nurse in Haiti? Attend the London School of Economics? Get a law degree?" But at the end of the vocational fantasy I think about Canto 25, and chide myself that to live in the endless possibilities of the future is to shortchange the present, and yields a dangerous affair with covetousness. And who wants to be a snake?
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"The Lord can direct a moving stream but he cannot direct a stagnant pool." My sister told me that once. It helps me realize that I either need to get up and act, or that if I am acting, I am doing all that I can at the time.
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