Journey to Ithaca

The destination is a direction, not a place. It is to get you moving, it is the goal itself. Ithakas are the goals we set, imagining that there is a glorious prize awaiting us at the end.

Actually, any place is as mundane as any other. There is nothing special about the end. It is the journey that brings us all that we seek to possess, experience, and share.

My teacher in middle school (I think?) read this to our class. She showed us that the poem meant a lot to her. She asked us what we thought 'these Ithakas mean'. It was very hard at that age to express the understanding of it. Let me now give it a shot.

It doesn't matter where you think Ithaka lies on a map. Nobody knows! We are all journeying to Ithaka believing we know where it is, but everybody thinks Ithaka is some place different. It is everywhere and nowhere.

If we were to be brought to all the Ithakas in the world by someone else, the experience would be as worthless as visiting none. We must travel our own path to Ithaka for it to give us all that it possesses.

The value of Ithaka is as is the unattainable star beyond our reach that fills our days with vigor and our nights with wonder. If we would ever set foot on that distant spark, all we would find is grey lifeless dust.

It is the separation from this vision of beauty that drives our ambitions and gives life meaning. As Tennyson pens in his classic Ulysses: "my purpose holds / To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths / Of all the western stars, until I die."

The posts related to my trip are now labeled "Journey to Ithaca"

Ithaca

When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.

Ask that your way be long.
At many a Summer dawn to enter
with what gratitude, what joy -
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can;
to visit many Egyptian cities,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.

Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don't in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn't anything else to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn't deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you'll have understood what these Ithakas mean.

Constantine P. Cavafy

- http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ithaca/