On TS Eliot’s Little Gidding

When I was in high school, I use to collect interesting quotes, phrases and fables.  I collected this out of inspiration – the word “au courant” would be an alternative name to an “About” page on a website that I drafted at 14.  Château en Espagne would be the name of one of the first Photoshop images I created at 13.  So, one night out of boredom, I came across a collection of quotes and stumbled upon this excerpt from Little Gidding by TS Eliot and since then, it has stuck with me and still struck me.

The only way I could convey why, and why this has anything to do with this blog, is through stories.

Of the realisation that the destination you thought you wanted to arrive at is not where you actually want to be.

After many months dedicating a lot of my time, energy and effort into anything and everything to do with work, I realised that the type of destination where I wanted to arrive at…was not the destination that I wanted to be in.   I came at a full circle only to realise that it wasn’t the circle, or the path, that I wanted to be in.  I knew ‘the place for the first time’ but then realised it wasn’t where I wanted to be in.

I had to completely change the map, the route, the journey.  Going from the known and into the unknown — then see what will happen from there.  And what better way to go to the unknown, then to take it literally.  By moving to another continent.

Of personal development

When you embark on something new it seems as if there is a lot of time to be had.  Time and space to explore.  With journeys, like projects, end and we arrive to where we started.  It was the end of the beginning.  But it can only be the beginning of something new – new perspectives, new lessons learned, a new person which is yourself.

Of travels ending and beginning

It’s the feeling of…arriving home, or arriving at the airport, where things are the same but it’s as if you are seeing this place for the first time.  Where the Greyhound bus station, the same station used for numerous other trips, just looks different.  Where, at the departure lounge at the airport everything seems to be left running as is on the moment of arrival, only seeing it differently.

 

It is all about finishing the journey as a different person.

The best part of traveling is the moment when you have just left — looking back on the series of events that lead you to this point — and on the moment of arrival — looking forward to what the next stage will bring whether it’s known or the unknown.