We learn best when the lesson has a cost

A friend came by the other day to return a book I'd loaned him. He brought along another book he thought I'd enjoy.

One of the joys of reading is that occasionally you come across a passage that lays bare a truth that you've long known but couldn't articulate, even to yourself. That's what happened when I began reading Jamie Zeppa's nonfiction work, "Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan."

Understand, I didn't know until a few months ago where Bhutan is -- in the mountains between Tibet and India. My friend and his wife had gone there recently to do medical work.

Zeppa, who grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, wrote this line as she was contemplating going to Bhutan to teach: "I wanted to throw myself into an experience that was too big for me and learn in a way that cost me something."

Ooh, I thought. Yes. That's good.

Isn't that what we all do when we make our improbable leaps of faith? Isn't that what we do when we drive two days north and paddle a river to Hudson Bay? Isn't that what we do when we decide to have kids? Isn't that what we do when we drop out of the sky into an Inuit village or a clinic in Zambia or a nursing station in Bangladesh?

Yes, we have a vague idea of what we are up to. We are able, on some level, to imagine it. Others have gone before us. We may have read their journals. We may have seen their pictures. We may have talked with them.

But we accept the fact that we cannot know for sure what awaits us. We know only that some part of this great journey probably will change our lives in ways we cannot predict. And we suspect, or know, that there will be unforeseen setbacks and unpredictable detours along the way.

There will be ravenous bugs and horrendous portages and map-reading errors on the way to Hudson Bay. International travelers will know the loneliness and confusion of the language barrier. New parents will fumble and fret their way through long nights with wailing offspring.

All we know, on the cusp of these momentous leaps, is that we cannot refuse to take the chance. Something inside of us is saying, "If you don't do this now, the opportunity may be lost forever." And in some irrational way, we are ready to embrace the overwhelming adversity.

We will somehow get down the river. We will survive dysentery on another continent. We will raise these kids the best way we know how.

Along the way, the most amazing things will happen. Good people will bestow great kindnesses on us. Doors will open that alter the course of our lives. And moments of sublime beauty will unexpectedly present themselves.

In the end, as Zeppa said, we will learn. And because we will learn when we are most vulnerable -- when it will cost us something -- the lessons will be driven home forever.

SAM COOK is a Duluth News Tribune columnist and outdoors writer. Reach him at (218) 723-5332 or scook@duluth news.com.