Quests
Posted on 21. Apr, 2024 by Paul Sochaczewski in Articles
QUESTS
Can following your desire to explore, create, and learn lead to happiness?
Consider the great cultural and religious myths — the Mahabharata, Beowulf, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Faust, the Divine Comedy, King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, the Odyssey, the Ring cycle — which feature a hero (I’m using the term to encompass men and women) who undertakes a journey to uncover a mystery, right a wrong, seek fame or fortune or happiness.
Now think of the classic films — Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, Die Hard, Casablanca, Gone With the Wind — which explore similar “searching-for” dynamics.
Philosopher Joseph Campbell called these archetypal scenarios the Hero’s Journey. And I suggest they are as important to you and me as they are to Luke Skywalker or Dorothy from Kansas.
Consider the turning points in your life where you are presented with choices — which university, which lover, which job. Life never stops presenting us with choices, and the way you embrace these adventures irrevocably changes your life. You go through one door (which loudly shuts behind you), and you enter a changed reality. If it’s a fictional story, you might call it the Narnia Wardrobe Effect or Alice’s Rabbit Hole. Surprises smack you in the face, and you must deal with unsuspected idiosyncrasies, edgy encounters, and revelatory insights. Take more steps, and other doors appear, and you choose one to go through. And on. And on.
Some 40 years ago I became interested in Indian religio-mythology. I was particularly fascinated by the climactic episode in the grand epic poem the Ramayana, in which Rama and his faithful brother Lakshmana voyage from northern India to what is now Sri Lanka to rescue Rama’s wife Sita, who had been kidnapped by Ravana, the ten-headed king. During one of the many battles Lakshmana is severely wounded. Their doctor says “I can cure him, but I need special medicinal plants.” The problem (and there’s always a problem, the concept of “no” drives all storytelling) is that the life-saving plants grow in the Himalaya, thousands of kilometers away. So, who you gonna call? Hanuman, the flying monkey god volunteers. He soars to the mountain (and he has to complete the task before dawn — all good narratives also involve a ticking clock), but, being a monkey, on arrival he forgets which plants to collect. So he rips off the mountain, carries it back to Lanka, Lakshmana is cured, he and Rama win the ensuring battle, and there’s a bittersweet ending. The side benefit is that it’s hard to fly across a sub-continent carrying a mountain like a pizza delivery guy without clods of earth falling. These dirt droppings flourished and became sacred forests, now found throughout Asia.
Hanuman’s tale appealed to me not only because of its cinematic-like grandeur, but because I’ve worked in nature conservation my entire career and have been impressed by how sacred forests and holy groves are protected by communities as “life reserves.”
It took me more than three decades to locate Hanuman’s mountain (the original texts are understandably enigmatic). But I found a likely geological feature, and wise scholars nodded in approval. I eventually trudged up a mountain path to visit Dunagiri mountain in northern India, and found an woman, Padhan Patti, who confirmed that the majestic snow-covered peak behind her house was indeed Hanuman’s mountain. But she added that she was angry with Hanuman for the cavalier manner in which he treated her “auntie” who, she said, showed Hanuman where the mountain was located and was then abandoned by the monkey god in the wilderness during a blizzard.
Paul Spencer Sochaczewski
Paul Spencer Sochaczewski
Paul Spencer Sochaczewski Padhan Patti, who lives near Hanuman’s mountain in northern India, is angry at Hanuman, the flying monkey god, for abandoning her auntie during a blizzard. This quest in search of Hanuman’s mountain (which cannot be summarized in one sentence), took Sochaczewski some 30 years to achieve.
Most of the quests I consider personally important and particularly interesting have similar long gestation periods, such as the decades-long quest to understand the power of the Queen of the Southern Ocean, who is the spiritual consort of two important sultans in central Java.
My interest in the white elephants that symbolize the power and legitimacy of the kings of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Burma, took me all over the region, culminating in the story of how a poor farmer in southern Laos, Boun Samsy, managed to catch a wild white elephant. He enjoyed fame and modest fortune for a few weeks, and was about to trade the white elephant to a Cambodian businessman who offered him 10 “normal” elephants in return. Before he could conclude the deal, a representative of the country’s First Lady knocked on his simple front door and said, in effect: You are honored, comrade, thank you for donating your white elephant to the People’s Republic of Laos because the power-hungry wife of our beloved president wants the animal in order to consolidate her reputation as a glorious queen. Boun Samsy, was forced to ride his elephant for three days to the country’s capital of Vientiane to donate his prized possession. He received no thanks nor compensation. The first lady, Thongvinh Phomvihane, is now a lonely old woman, a short cynical footnote in the nation’s history.
Paul Spencer Sochaczewski One of Sochaczewski’s quests tells the story of a Boun Somsy, a humble villager in southern Laos who captured a precious white elephant that was quickly hijacked by the country’s First Lady, Thongvinh Phomvihane. She claimed ownership of the rare animal to enhance her status as a legitimate and powerful Buddhist queen.
Some quests are sparked by a single paragraph in a book, as was my search for the “lost Jews” of Kisar, a tiny, isolated island in eastern Indonesia.
Paul Spencer Sochaczewski Paulus Mauky at his uncle Hermanus Mauky’s grave. The tombstone, donated by Rumondang M. Sitompul, features a Christian cross, but no Jewish symbols. The English version of the Indonesian inscription, from Deuteronomy 32:10: “In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye.”
And the quest to learn the truth about my Romanian aunt, who claimed to be of noble birth and a protégé of Queen Marie, took me to Transylvania, her birthplace, where I learned of her numerous lies, exaggerations, and biographical inventions, all done with valid intentions.
I don’t collect quests, but I value them.
Some people are deep divers (often earning a PhD along the way) and spend a lifetime pursuing a single theme — searching for a cure for cancer, fighting for equal education for girls, or stopping tropical forest destruction.
Other people string together a series of physical feats — climb all 8,000-meter peaks, swim the English channel, bicycle across Mongolia. Obsessions? Perhaps. Of value to the quester? Certainly. Selfish and irritating? Often.
Quests do not have to involve travels to distant lands; they can be pragmatic and close to home. Many people wouldn’t call themselves heroes at all, but nevertheless engage on hero’s journeys as they earn a college degree, join a big law firm, learn to windsurf, visit Paris, master the art of puff pastry, give long-term comfort to an ailing relative, recover from an illness, get elected to public office, become a professional musician, or raise a child.
It’s great to have goals, but regardless of the objective you set, you are likely to encounter the frustration of catawampus, in which life ignores your best intentions and events take an unwanted turn. As the saying goes, “if you want to make God laugh, tell Her your plans.”
Yet not all quests need be clearly signposted. You could engage in coddiwomple, a travel in a purposeful manner toward a vague destination. And sometimes you just need to go with the flow and follow the advice of baseball sage Yogi Berra: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
I was a founding member of a group in Geneva called the Burlamaqui-Sundberg Society, an informal gang of professional, mostly expatriate men who gathered to eat, drink, talk, and exaggerate. We took our name from Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, an 18th-century Geneva-based philosopher and professor of natural law, who wrote that the quest for happiness is a natural right. According to our society’s version of history, Burlamaqui’s writing influenced Thomas Jefferson to include the term “pursuit of happiness” in the United States Declaration of Independence.
We could never agree on what happiness was, nor how to achieve it. But one element of happiness, it seems to me, is having a project, a goal, a desire to explore, create, and learn.
My quests do not have gravitas or legacy on a grand scale, but they are my stories, my adventures, the results of my own (admittedly often esoteric) curiosity.
What quests have you been up to recently?
This article relates to Paul’s latest book, just published:
Quests: Searching for Heroes, Scoundrels, Star-Gazers, and a Mermaid Queen
ISBN: 978-2-940573-43-1 (paperback) | 978-2-940573-44-8 (ebook)
Available at Amazon or independent booksellers.