In her quirky but wonderful...
Illustration
In her quirky but wonderful book, Mutant Message Down Under, Dr. Marlo Morgan tells in a fictionalized fashion of her experience on "walkabout" with aborigines of Australia. The aborigines have sent word to Dr. Morgan, a visiting American M.D., that they would like to offer her an award, thanking her for all she's done for their people; they would like her to travel with them for a time.
An aborigine picks her up in a jeep, outside her fancy hotel in the city. They drive into the Outback, for what Dr. Morgan imagines will be a brief ceremony -- though she quickly discovers that the aboriginal sense of time is very different from her own. It will be a very long time indeed before she returns to civilization.
Several women are waiting for them. Now is the time, they tell her, to begin walking. The first thing the doctor must do, they tell her, with broken English and with gestures, is to take off her shoes. With some trepidation, she does so, and they begin walking, barefoot, over the rough and stony ground.
Very soon, Dr. Morgan is in agony. Her feet are bruised and bleeding, burned from the hot sand. But she keeps going; the aborigines force her to keep going. Only by continuing with her walkabout, they know, will her feet grow hard and calloused. If she did not undergo this period of toughening, the day would soon come when her shoes would wear out -- and where would they find new ones in the Outback? Night after night, the women rub ointment on her aching feet; day after day, they all keep walking. In time, what they have told her proves to be true -- she is able to keep pace with them, to walk barefoot like an aborigine.
This is something very close to what Paul means by character. Character, to him, is like a beneficial callous on the soul: a hard, protective coating that can be gained only through pain; that's built up only through struggle.
An aborigine picks her up in a jeep, outside her fancy hotel in the city. They drive into the Outback, for what Dr. Morgan imagines will be a brief ceremony -- though she quickly discovers that the aboriginal sense of time is very different from her own. It will be a very long time indeed before she returns to civilization.
Several women are waiting for them. Now is the time, they tell her, to begin walking. The first thing the doctor must do, they tell her, with broken English and with gestures, is to take off her shoes. With some trepidation, she does so, and they begin walking, barefoot, over the rough and stony ground.
Very soon, Dr. Morgan is in agony. Her feet are bruised and bleeding, burned from the hot sand. But she keeps going; the aborigines force her to keep going. Only by continuing with her walkabout, they know, will her feet grow hard and calloused. If she did not undergo this period of toughening, the day would soon come when her shoes would wear out -- and where would they find new ones in the Outback? Night after night, the women rub ointment on her aching feet; day after day, they all keep walking. In time, what they have told her proves to be true -- she is able to keep pace with them, to walk barefoot like an aborigine.
This is something very close to what Paul means by character. Character, to him, is like a beneficial callous on the soul: a hard, protective coating that can be gained only through pain; that's built up only through struggle.
