Course Charting – First Steps

So I asked you to identify something you are into (an interest or hobby) and start thinking about how you got there. Remember, no one ever just woke one day to find themselves on a sports team or in a band. It took years of encounters and events. That’s what I mean by the course. I’ve been thinking hard about this over the last few days. Here’s what I did:

I sat down with a blank piece of paper and asked myself, “What very broad ideas have had the most significant influence upon my life?” At first, my mind was flooded with all sorts of interests, so I had to think specifically about the really big ones – the broad categories into which my many interests would fit. Then I wrote them down as they came to me. Interestingly, they came to mind in chronological order such that I could actually identify the time in my life when I first became interested in them. Here’s my list:

Mystery (Early Childhood)

Music (Junior High School)

God (Senior Year of High School)

Writing (Age 36)

Next, I looked at my list to see what it could teach me.

1. My first three areas of interest came to me in the first eighteen years of my life. The fourth did not come until eighteen years later. This suggests that my younger mind was much more open to big ideas than my older mind. If true, then I need to be aware that the older I get the easier it is for me to block out or simply not recognize new ideas and areas of interest. I should keep this in mind when I meet new people and encounter new things.

2. Each new area of interest came out of the previous one. I’ll explain this more as we continue, but suffice it to say that I know how my love of mystery opened my mind to music, which in turn played a significant role in my encounter with God, which eventually led to my endeavors in writing. See, they are all connected like a chain.

3. Each area of interest is also connected by a single continuous, common thread. Again, I’ll go into this in greater detail later, but I can clearly see how these four areas are related thematically.

If my observations mean anything, they might provide insight into what may be next on my horizon. It seems very reasonable that my next big area of interest will come out of my writing and be conducive to that common thread that connects the other four. Armed with my increasing understanding about my present courses, perhaps I will recognize the next course much earlier than say, when I’m fifty-four (that’s eighteen years after the last item on my list).

That’s enough to chew on for now. Next time, I will explore the course of people and events that led to my first big area – Mystery.