A life can be many things; it can be writ small or large, but however we live it seems to always to be a quest. But what kind of quest? That is the question.

quest

  "The more a person's life is concerned with the quest for the essential, the more likely he is to perceive a symbolic meaning in what is happening before his eyes." [Philip Friedländer, Plato 8 (New York: Harper Torchbooks/Bollingen Library, 1958)(vol. 1)]

    "To remain vibrant throughout a lifetime we must always be inventing ourselves, weaving new themes into our life-narratives, remembering our past, re-visioning our future, reauthorizing the myth by which we live." [Sam Keen & Anne Valley-Fox, Your Mythic Journey: Finding Meaning in Your Life Through Writing and Storytelling xv (Los Angles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1989)]

  "In our society, among the most desired and admired statuses is to be a member of a profession. Such status is attained not by going into the woods for intense, but brief, ordeals of initiation into adult mysteries, but by a long course of professional instruction. . . ." [Howard S. Becker, et.al., Boys in White: Student Culture in Medical School 4 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961)]

  "A profession to be worthy of the name must inculcate in its members a strong sense of the special obligations that attach to their calling. One who undertakes the practice of a profession cannot rest content with the faithful discharge of duties assigned to him by others. His work must find its direction within a larger frame. All that he does must evidence a dedication, not merely to a specific assignment, but to the enduring ideals of his vocation. Only such a dedication will enable him to reconcile fidelity to those he serves with an equal fidelity to an office that must at all times rise above the involvements of immediate interest." ["Professional Responsibility: Report of the Joint Conference," in Andrew L. Kaufman, Problems in Professional Responsibility 2-16, at 4 (Boston: Little, Brown, 2nd ed., 1984)]

 

ritual