Into the Desert of Mortification and Reward

Choosing to read last night paid off because I came across this delicious quote from Voss, set in 19th century Australia, written by Patrick White in the 1950s, and which I've got to finish by a book club meeting on Thursday.

Few people of attainments take easily to a plan of self-improvement. Some discover very early their perfection cannot endure the insult. Others find their intellectual pleasure lies in the theory, not the practice. Only a few stubborn ones will blunder on, painfully, out of the luxuriant world of their pretensions into the desert of mortification and reward.

Good timing for this college writing instructor who will be back in the classroom tomorrow, facing a new group of students who will be critiquing my performance.

I confess that I am still slightly reeling from one particular student's audacity in his final reflective essay last April after he was especially challenging in the classroom all semester. I am feeling slightly vulnerable. But I am trying to endure the insult, put theory for improving my performance into practice, and be willing to blunder on.