Walking Our Own Paths

 I have to admit that I find this week's quotation, by French writer, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, confusing. It reads, "Do not just walk the smooth roads. Walk paths that no-one has walked before, so that you leave traces and not just dust."

Because no-one walks exactly the same path as anyone else - we are all unique human beings, coming from unique parentage, backgrounds and past experiences, all of which will impact our choice of the roads we travel throughout our lives. 

I suppose it might mean that we should try to choose the path that makes the most sense to us, at the deepest level of our being and at the point of our decision, rather than blindly following the choices or decisions of others. We might call this the way of integrity, perhaps. For most people, it is so much easier to follow the "smooth roads", so much harder to strike out on our own, because it requires more bravery, more confidence in our own choices. Especially if by doing so, we are going against the opinions of others, of the silent majority. 

It is a deep human instinct to take our problems to someone else, someone we think is wiser than we are, stronger than we are, and allow them to influence our paths, even to make our decisions for us. But in the end, if we want to grow into the best people we can be, only we should, only we can, make our decisions, our choices, for ourselves. Because, as I said, each person is unique, so what is right for one may not be right for another.

Many of the choices we make will have little impact on the lives of others, or even on our own lives. But sometimes, they will change our lives, setting us on a new course, which we could not have imagined before we made that choice, set our feet on that path. When I was doing German A level, many years ago, one of our set texts for the literature element was Sansibar oder der letzte Grund by Alfred Andersch. It was about exactly this - a small group of people in the little north German town of Rerik during World War II, who make decisions which will change their lives. As Walter G. Hesse writes in his introduction to it, "The people in this tense tale seem very ordinary and familiar at the outset, yet they are drawn into a web of nightmarish incidents which force all of them to decisions which raise them far above the ordinary and familiar." He calls them "the few... to whom moral values were more important than safety."

Hesse continues, "Everyone who doubts, who retains a measure of questioning intellect or belief, even if he is not as capable as those who can 'read the signs', will eventually, by talk or action, undermine an authority which can maintain itself only through the silence of the passive majority... Everyone who contradicts the money-lenders and traders in this contemporary temple is... forced to renounce selfish interests."

The symbol of this "measure of questioning intellect or belief" is a little wooden statue, called Der Lesende Klosterschuler or the reading monk, which one of the characters, a pastor named Helander, asks the fisherman, Knudsen, to smuggle out of the country, because within the privacy of his own head, the reading monk is free, and this is a symbol the Nazis cannot bear. It is a wonderful book, which had a great impact on me.

Der lesende Klosterschuler (photo in book, Rembrandt-Verlag, Berlin)

So we need to take thought at every choice point, and try to discern what the right thing, the moral thing is, for us, at that particular instant in our journey through life. We should not be afraid to do the right thing, even if it is different. We should be willing to follow the still, small voice of our consciences, or that of the Divine spark within, and blaze our own trail, thus leaving traces of our path for others to be inspired by.