I know what it is to wander, and to stumble upon things great and small. Perhaps I know nothing of what it means to search for anything. All the significant things that have ever happened to me, they have just landed in my lap, slapped me in the face and said, "Here I am." I feel that I've been tossed about like a leaf in the wind, and even my wanderings may be the result of outer forces, beyond my control. I know little, I think, of what it means to dig, to choose a plot of ground and excavate, see what's there in the roots of it — I'm too often being kicked between this thing and that.
I think I must find a place for myself, a home for my soul. It may be that the greater things of a man's life are not for him to decide; there are larger things than a human's being, after all, things that choose him, rather than the other way around. At some point, though, as we're being thrown about, there is a spot — a branch in the world tree — where we may hang on for dear life. Yes, a desperate thing: life is short, and to find true purpose is perhaps a rare thing.... Let me start. I see around me some clues, that I may begin to search: that I may find the thing that is myself.
