Labyrinths, Mazes, and Myths. Part 2.
Labyrinths and mazes are often mistaken for one another. A labyrinth guides you to its center and back along a clearly defined path; whereas a maze throws you in there and wishes you luck. Fundamentally, I don’t enjoy walking either. Mazes can be claustrophobic and the meditative presumptions of labyrinths can take all the fun out. Seriously! The only people I know who experience a labyrinth’s full spiritual potential are little children who run around it as fast as they can and, when they come out, fall down dizzy, giggling.
I rarely walked (or ran) our labyrinth. Instead, after a few circuits, I’d start picking up newly-fallen branches and use them to build up the path edges that were slowly but inexorably composting themselves back to earth.
After an overnight snowstorm, I was always anxious to see if I could “find” the labyrinth under the almost-smooth surface of snow. So, as soon as it was light enough, I’d put on a random assortment of sweatshirts, ski pants, and woolen hats, strap on my snowshoes, go out to the labyrinth, and stomp it down before it disappeared completely.
Sometimes, however, no matter how early I got out there, the labyrinth was barely visible under the windswept snow. I would try to stay focused on re-establishing the true path while the typical morning blizzard of e-mail drafts and one-liners swirled around my brain. But, at some point, I’d inevitably cross one of the defining circles and start walking the wrong circuit in the wrong direction. Then I’d have to retrace my steps or hop over to a circuit I recognized further along and work backward. (Although it was difficult to ‘hop” on snowshoes without making things even worse.)
But, eventually, with a plastic-sealed diagram in one hand and a shovel in the other, I’d re-mark the circuits, lightly erasing my mistakes by brushing snow over them with a broom and then my glove. Slowly, step by step, inch by inch, I re-tromped the path and smoothed the broken borders, until the labyrinth re-emerged from its snowy oblivion.
People have different rituals at the center of labyrinths. Usually of the prayerful variety. Even I would occasionally turn in each direction, close my eyes, take a deep breath, and then open them. I remember doing that after one of those long, snowy, labyrinthine rescue missions. When I completed the circuit and was facing north again, I closed my eyes and sighed. I felt I’d finally made it to the center of the labyrinth. Now all I had to do was find my way out.
One of my favorite short stories, Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, was written by Jorge Louis Borges in his famous collection called, appropriately enough, Labyrinths.
The fictional story is presented as a non-fiction account of a man named Pierre Menard who is so obsessed with Miguel de Cervantes’s 17th-century novel Don Quixote, that he decides to create a contemporary version—not by copying it, but rather by completely re-composing it. In one letter to the story's fictional, albeit very realistic, author Menard admits, “The task I have taken is not in essence, difficult…If I could just be immortal, I could do it.”
After reviewing the two works, the author argues with academic certainty that Cervantes’s version is an anachronism and that Menard’s is “almost infinitely richer.” As an example, he presents two sentences side-by-side, pointing out that, clearly, Cervantes’ is mere rhetoric, while Menard’s is “brazenly pragmatic.”
The two sentences are identical.1
You enter a labyrinth at the opening on the north node. After a long circuitous journey to the center, you follow exactly the same path back to the exit, emerging at precisely the same place…but, occasionally, “almost infinitely richer.”
There’s always the risk that the intuitive wisdom of any metaphor will get buried under an avalanche of exegesis. But sometimes it’s a risk worth taking. Especially at a time when people are debating whether a sentence composed by a mere mortal is any better than the same sentence generated by artificial intelligence.2
PS. Wendy and I sold the house with the labyrinth about seven years ago. We went to see it recently and, as expected, the circles of branches were dissolving into the forest floor, transforming it into something identical, but almost infinitely richer than it was before.
The magical realism of Borges’s stories didn’t seem all that metaphorical in the 1960s. By then, many of us were convinced that conventional notions of reality were sorely lacking and had begun a lifelong process of exploring the alternatives.
I’m not sure AI composition programs can generate metaphors yet. But, even if they can, will they get them?
Great work Dave!