0Here is the second in a series of paintings I’ve been posting about. This one is called “YOUTH”. The artist is Thomas Cole and you can see an interactive version of the painting here:
YOUTH
The stream now pursues its course through a landscape of wider scope and more diversified beauty. Trees of rich growth overshadow its banks, and verdant hills form the base of lofty mountains. The Infant of the former scene is become a Youth, on the verge of Manhood. He is now alone in the Boat, and takes the helm himself; and in an attitude of confidence and eager expectation, gazes on a cloudy pile of Architecture, an air-built Castle that rises dome above dome in the far-off blue sky. The Guardian Spirit stands upon the bank of the stream, and with serious yet benignant countenance seems to be bidding the impetuous voyager ‘God Speed.’ The beautiful stream flows directly toward the aerial palace, for a distance; but at length makes a sudden turn, and is seen in glimpses beneath the trees, until it at last descends with rapid current into a rocky ravine, where the voyager will be found in the next picture. Over the remote hills, which seems to intercept the stream and turn it from its hitherto direct course, a path is dimly seen, tending directly toward that cloudy Fabric, which is the object and desire of the voyager.
The scenery of this picture — its clear stream, its lofty trees, its towering mountains, its unbounded distance, and transparent atmosphere — figure forth the romantic beauty of youthful imaginings, when the mind magnifies the Mean and Common into the Magnificent, before experience teaches what is the Real. The gorgeous cloud-built palace, whose most glorious domes seem yet but half revealed to the eye, growing more and more lofty as we gaze, is emblematic of the day-dreams of youth, its aspirations after glory and fame; and the dimly-seen path would intimate that Youth, in his impetuous career, is forgetful that he is embarked on the Stream of Life, and that its current sweeps along with resistless force, and increases in swiftness as it descends toward the great Ocean of Eternity.
I like that the direction changed, and that the painting indicates it will change more as the boy travels. And not always in the direction he wants to go – it’s like, you don’t always get to pick the course, no matter what you’ve set your eye on.
There is a series of stories about me in our family history, that my mom sometimes tells. They’re not very interesting, but they are all related. On my first day of kindergarten, she expected me to be frightened and clingy the way my older sister was. And I was frightened – I was not an overly independent child; quite the opposite actually – I delayed first grade for a year because the school didn’t think I was appropriately independent and ready for the “next step.” But I have always had a “do what must be done” aspect to my personality, and that first day of kindergarten was no different. As we approached the doors to the school, I hugged my mom with little emotion, and then I simply walked away without looking back. She stood there, slightly stunned, watching me march confidently away from her, and she cried.
Similarly, my first summer away at camp, I was nervous and quiet for the whole 4 hour drive up there. My parents helped me unpack my sleeping bag, my duffel bag, my assorted comic books – and then it was time for them to go, time for all the parents to go, for us eight cabinmates, eight new friends and enemies, to be left (relatively) alone with each other. A few girls cried; the dinner bell rang – we were drawing our goodbyes out too long. I hugged my mom and dad in turn, and walked away without looking back. My dad turned to my mom and said, “That’s it? I expected…something else.” And my mom said, “That’s how she is.”
She only told me these stories shortly after she left me in my college dorm room when I was 18. My father labored over making everything perfect – taping all the cables to the wall so they would be up and out of the way, etc. My mother tucked books onto shelves, sheets around the mattress, little love notes into nooks and crannies. I walked them to their car, and then walked away without looking back. She e-mailed me later to tell me how much this tendency had always surprised her – I was the most dependent of her children, and yet when push came to shove I was the one most able to simply square my shoulders, set my chin, and walk away. She had always struggled with a mixture of sadness and pride at this, at the ease with which I simply cast aside my emotions and did what I ‘had to do.’
What I never told her – to this day, actually; I should – is that I remember each of those moments, even the kindergarten one. And I distinctly remember repeating to myself, over and over, “Don’t look. If you look, you’ll cry. If you look back, you’ll go back.” I remember hardly being able to breathe past the enormous lump in my throat, and I remember thinking that my refusal to look back was a way of protecting my parents from the strength with which I loved them, from the pain that leaving them caused me. If they knew how hard it was for me, they’d never let me leave. I had to go TOWARDS something or I would never, ever go anywhere at all.
That’s what the boy in this reminded me of, kind of. Leaving the angel behind and looking only towards the future.
Excellent.
Note also how the boy is now steering his own boat, and how he is reaching for his dreams. But dreams are all they are, as you can see that the “castle” is not real. The boy believes that he can make it real, that he can attain ALL that he dreams of. But while his eye is on the “dream” reality is encroaching…he is moving forward, but the path winds and there is no indication as to where it will lead. Will the river take him to the sky? Will his dreams become reality? Or does “life” have some surprises in store. What of the angel? In allowing the boy “free will” the angel must step back, let the boy have the illusion, and I emphasize “illusion”, that he is the one in control. He thinks he knows where he is going, but of course he doesn’t. Control, like the castle, are only dreams.
Will idealism give way to reality?
“Will idealism give way to reality?”
Which answer would you rather have be true for him?
This one depressed the heck out of me, I’ll be honest.
The interesting thing about the river as metaphor is that, like, you CAN steer yourself, to a certain extent. You’re not just an out-of-control baby the whole time. But it’s not the ocean – it’s not just a wide open 360-degree field of possibility. You can only go where the river will take you, no matter how good you are at steering – you can’t just be like, “I’m going to go left,” or “I’m going to go up into the sky now.”
I once went white-water rafting in this beautiful place whose name I have since forgotten – it was in France, traveling south from Paris towards Nice, but that’s all I really remember. Anyway it got really difficult towards the end, and I was like, “Um we’re all going to bounce out,” and I was kind of wondering why we had chosen to do this in the first place. And then we had gotten through and we were suddenly in, like, a fairy-tale world – a placid little lake sort of place, surrounded by cliffs and lush growth and open sky, hardly a ripple on the water. It is one of the most amazing memories I have – the exhaustion of getting through the rapids, the near-despair, and then the complete shock at the beauty that followed it all.
My point isn’t that everything has a purpose, that if we hadn’t gone through the rapids we’d never have seen the little oasis. My point is that we felt like we had “done” something, when all we had really done is survived what was being “done to” us by the course of the river we were on. We hadn’t built a castle and then climbed up to it. We hadn’t even charted our own course. We had simply steered our way safely through the places the current took us. And that was enough.
It has to be.
Basically, you just described free will. We cannot control the river, we can not control the weather, we can only control ourselves. And while that might be enough, the real question is “What IS controlling the weather? What IS controlling the river?”
If we resent that WE aren’t in control, then we will be “fighting” whatever it is that IS in control. But if we “Trust” that which is in control, we are actually back in control again. When the angel was steering, the child had no worries, because he understood (even if not consciously) that whoever was in charge was quite capable and knew what was coming. Sort of like you trusting the guide on that rafting trip. You knew that he/she knew what you didn’t know. You landed safely, ONLY because you didn’t fight the guide. Had you thrown them overboard and taken control of the raft, you might not be here today to tell the story. You might, but that would be leaving it up to chance, instead of leaving it up to the experts.
Personally, the angel on the river bank is what made me sad. As soon as you realized the angel had left the building, you KNEW this guy was in trouble. It bothered me that he was on his own. I wanted to yell, “Dude! Are you nuts???? Let the angel back in the boat!!!!”
I’m gonna go put up number three now…