Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

"Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one's liberty." As I embark on my last two weeks of school, I find this idea, stated by Henri Frederic Amiel, especially poignant, as the last day of this school year is not the start of the countdown to the first day back. It is the start of a whole new enterprise, as I've made the decision to retire, permanently, from teaching. So, yes, I hope to find many secret joys, as I sever a major tie to my identity, and more fearfully, a tie to a livelihood that, if not always competitive, is always consistent and stable.
I firmly believe that we are who we are, even starting from the beginning of childhood. It's not that we necessarily change, but as people who mature, we change into our ultimate selves - our honed "irreducible self," as James Joyce so aptly put it. Because teaching is the conveying of knowledge, my alternate line of work is not far from it: I have opened up my own tutoring business, and am planning on changing the way kids not only learn knowledge, but how to appreciate it, as well. It is our responsibility in life to acknowledge the exigent inside of us by showing others that they have an inner "something" that makes them tick. One of the chief means of doing this is by education, as it shows people a myriad of ways in which to reflect on themselves, and on the things they will experience in life. In art, it is argued that artists do not create because they want to, but rather, it is because they have to do so. The inner fire that burns within them won't let them cease creating an expression of themselves. But, why draw the boundary line at artists? Maybe one of the secret joys of life is to realize that we all have an artist within us, and we just have to learn how to coax it out with the purposeful strokes of the brush.
And as far as gaining liberty goes, an idea that seemingly contradicts the previous sentiment is one said in the literary world: that nothing new can ever be created or written. That each theme written upon deals with the universal ideas of God, love, and death. Certainly, these things have been written about, and mulled over through the ages, but the challenge in self-education, or helping someone else with his education is seeing these universal ideas in a way that is uniquely impacting to him. Not only can you teach an old dog new tricks, but the old dog will be thrown a bone in this sometimes harsh world in which we live. And sustenance, of the literal and metaphorical kind, is a freedom that has no value.