Belly of the Whale

The more I think about it, the more I don't actually want to go back to the east coast yet.

As much as I complain about the differences in culture and struggle with the loneliness of it all, it feels like it's too soon to go back. It feels like going back now would be premature- almost as though I would be retreating to the safety and comfort of home. I would have come out here and learned for only nine months. I would have grown some but not enough. There just wouldn't be any real cause for celebration, no sense of glory for having accomplished something in the wilds. I would be flying, not fighting.

Houston, on the other hand, is a whole new challenge yet again. A foreign city with a brand new job and paltry contacts to speak of. The closest thing I will have experienced to Houston is St Louis. Even then, every city is different and the two are separated by 1,000 miles of distance. The brand new job will probably be the most technically difficult role I've ever attempted. The lack of contacts will be similar to what I found here but with significantly more potential to develop and flourish.

What's more, I don't think home has changed enough to my liking yet. There are still too many old acquaintances floating around the area. The roads are too similar. The shops and restaurants haven't had a chance to undergo significant changes yet. My return in July would feel like this whole excursion was some kind of extended field trip, nothing more.

No ... it is important to push on. It is important to go west, seeking my fortune on a new horizon. And it is so very important to choose the new road, the difficult road, the road that will lead to somewhere I can't see at all.

"The idea that the passage of the magical threshold is a transit into a sphere of rebirth is symbolized in the worldwide womb image of the belly of the whale. The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown and would appear to have died. This popular motif gives emphasis to the lesson that the passage of the threshold is a form of self-annihilation. Instead of passing outward, beyond the confines of the visible world, the hero goes inward, to be born again. ... allegorically, then, the passage into a temple and the hero-dive through the jaws of the whale are identical adventures, both denoting in picture language, the life-centering, life-renewing act."

-J. Campbell