The PHurrowed Brow

This is the second post in a series, one daily from the 3rd to the 24th.
If you are coming to these posts late, I’d urge you (for continuity’s
sake!) to go back & read them in their sequence of publication.

How would you complete the ellipsis above, if pressed to do so? Perhaps, “No matter where you go, the IRS will find you!” Or, “No matter where you go, you’ll find kind people ready to help.” Then again, you might end it, “No matter where you go, you will regret leaving!” The messages (and nuances!) of each of these possible supplement express a clear perspective on the part of each speaker, aiming to threaten or console the addressee. Clearly, those potential completions speak volumes about the context of the complete sentence.

Alternatively, consider this possible, yet enigmatic completion: “No matter where you go, there you are.” If you supplied those final three words, you are perhaps a disciple of the inimitable Buckaroo Banzai, title character of a cult classic from 1984. Or perhaps you follow a later guru of mindfulness inspired by Buddhist teachings. It’s also possible to simply accept the phrase as a statement of the obvious.

As one who adolesced in the early 80s, I applaud the eccentric whimsy of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. But when the title character uses the line in this barroom scene to quiet a taunting crowd, the koan-like pronouncement seems to be an inane afterthought: “Hey, hey, hey. Don’t be mean. We don’t have to be mean. Cause, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.” For me, at least, the choice to be mean regrettably (and predictably) occurs in certain familiar, well-defined settings. That is, I know full well where I am when I give in to meanness. And reminding me of that location seldom shifts me over to kindness. Perhaps Buckaroo misspoke, and the elusive key to choosing kindness lies in thinking first not of where you are, but rather of where other individuals are situated and the struggles they’ve faced on the journey to get there.

But does “Wherever you go, there you are.” have a history before 1984? Indeed, there are numerous earlier attestations of this or similarly phrased dicta. One researcher dryly offers citations of 20th century versions of the locution in English as far back as 1955, mentioning some as humorous, but does not offer much context for them. On the other hand, he cites (in translation), a Latin work from the medieval period as the earliest attestation. It is an earnest use of the notion, appearing in the text of Dē Imitātiōne Christī, (On the Imitation of Christ), a devotional handbook written by Thomas à Kempis. Thomas, a key figure in 15th century Christianity, admonishes the reader to imitate Christ as the sole way to attain salvation. In the second book of this work, Thomas wholeheartedly urges that the reader take up the cross and approximate, through self-mortification, Christ’s suffering at his crucifixion. In so prescribing, Thomas invokes travel (if not adventure) as a metaphor for both life’s suffering and for finding the path to salvation. The translation is mine, and I seek pardon if I do not render the diction of this age and faith with all the accuracy that is its due:

Behold, all (hope) lies in the cross, and there is no other path to life, and to true inner peace, except the path of the holy cross, and the path of daily mortification. Walk where you wish, seek whatever you may want, and you will not find a higher path above, nor a more certain path below, unless you find the path of the holy cross. Settle and arrange everything according to your wish and your vision, and (even so) you will not find a path except one on which you must, willingly or unwillingly, suffer, and so you will always find the cross. For indeed either you will feel some pain in your body, or you will find some torment of your spirit in your soul.

At times you will be abandoned by God, at times provoked by one near to you, and, what is graver, you will often be a hardship to your own self. But for all that, you will be unable to be unburdened through any cure or comfort: until God has willed otherwise, you are bound to endure the burden. For God’s will is that you learn to suffer torment without comforting, and that you wholly give yourself over to the torment, and that you become humbler through it. Nobody so fully feels the suffering of Christ in his heart as that person whose lot it has been to suffer similar torments. Therefore your cross has been prepared, and it awaits you everywhere. You can’t escape (your cross) for this reason: wherever you go, you bear yourself with you, and you will always find yourself (and your cross) there. Turn (and look) upwards, (and look) turn below, turn (and look) inwards and outwards, and in all these places you will find your cross; and everywhere you must maintain patience through suffering, if you wish to gain internal peace and to deserve the eternal crown (of salvation).  

If welcomingly you carry the cross, it will carry you, and it will bring you to the longed-for end, where to be sure there will be an end of suffering…  

Dē Imitātiōne Christī Book II.12.3-5

Thomas is certain that one’s faults accompany a person on any journey or adventure, and that those faults inevitably lead the person to suffer. I’m no theologian, and I do not accept all of Thomas’ contentions, but to me it seems that, for him, accepting the necessity of that suffering, persisting through it, and seeing one’s own suffering as paltry imitations of Christ’s sufferings are the only scalable route to some higher condition. I’d welcome your assessment of his argument, of you disagree with mine.

I beg your indulgence for another day of theological and philosophical assessments of adventure. Before drawing out of Thomas’ contentions what resonates with me (and what doesn’t), I will use my next post to share brief accounts of a pair of ancient perspectives on what one gains (or doesn’t) by taking a journey or seeking adventure. Centuries before Thomas à Kempis, the Romans Horace and Seneca gave us writings in which they evaluate travel. Is travel for travel’s sake merely a means of seeking novelty as an escape from one’s intrinsic shortcomings? If there is worth (beyond simple enjoyment) to be found in travel and adventure, where does it lie? I have possible answers to those questions. You probably do, too. Let’s trace them out tomorrow, then we can move on to sharing the exhilaration and the pitfalls of actual journeys.

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