Gideon Lewis Kraus Journey

‘A Sense of Direction’ by Gideon Lewis-Kraus is a memoir about the vulnerability of Mr. Kraus. He writes about these series of pilgrims he takes and how these journey’s teaches him a few lessons in life. Due to the constrained life his father, who had to hide that he is homosexual- and because of this, he went through an unhappy marriage, be a spiritual leader for his congregation and hide his identity until his mid-forties; Lewis-Kraus fears that he might have many regrets later on in life just because he did not do the things he wanted to in his twenties like his father; he decides to let his life take him places, where he ‘goes-with-the-flow’, a life which is led by his free-flowing desires but which also has some kind of structure, especially
Gideon determined to not repeat the same mistakes as his father did. He did not want a rigidity in his life which would cease to give him any choices. In order to find a bit of structure and freedom at the same time, he sensed, after doing the Camino that pilgrimages would help him to overcome the crisis of discovering what he wanted from his life. But seemingly, the ending of the book was not fully the end of his crisis. There was some sort of happy ending to it since him and his father reconcile and clear it all out but in the aftermath, they both still end up in the same situation and Gideon claimed, during his visitation to our class that he’s writing articles for magazines and is not quite sure of his life still. His time in Berlin, according to me, was chaotic and unstructured. Although he was attempting to do what he wanted at present, in the end, it did not satisfy him and left him in the dilemma of what he actually wanted. It is quite contradictory because here Gideon was, letting himself loose, following his primary drives yet he was going through a crisis and David Levine aptly phrased this at the right time for Gideon: “Life is a crisis of doing what you want.” This is so significant to the book and to Gideon’s life and it is
But he then asked: “Have you become like me?” (Who is an atheist) and I just said yes without giving any details that I’m not an atheist but an agnostic since I still believe in God. What I’m going through in my mind is very contradictory because on one hand, I want to explore other religions and digging to see if there is ‘truth’ in them and on the other, I’m saying that I am agnostic who does not follow any religion but believe in God. I have shared about this to a few of my friends who I consider close- Muslim, Christian and non-religious. Not surprisingly, one of my Christian friend started sending me long texts on proving why Christianity is the truth and that I shouldn’t leave. I was a bit annoyed but it was definitely an expected response. I’m sure that when I confess to my mom, there will be tensions between us and she would say to me: “I’ll pray for you” or I will hear her praying loudly in the drawing room to get the devil out of my system. I have become a ‘rebel’ since I’m trying new things and disowning the things I used to do as a Christian. Secondly, picking a major was a big concern for many months. Usually Indian parents decide which career path their children should take but I am privileged to have parents who have let me choose what I want to do in life. Although my mother insists on me being a lawyer or a