I don't know what to call this anymore.

The setting sun drew the scattered mounds of earth eastward into long, indigo shadows. For every square foot of undisturbed grass, three minuscule ditches of equal size peppered it's perimeter. Anyone stumbling across this scene would assume it was a spectacularly preserved battle site from the American Civil War, but these trenches yielded neither bone nor bullet. In fact, they yielded nothing but disappointment. Well, nothing but an exhaust pipe, a horseshoe, a Christmas ornament, and a paperweight in the shape of Felix the Cat; but those all equated to disappointment.

A trail of small, ocherous footprints twisted around the yard and up the small set of porch stairs. They made their way past a discarded shovel, through a back door, and through a small, cluttered house. Where the trail ended sat a small girl of seven. Face propped up on filthy palms, she surveyed the fruits of her toils laid out in front of her. Her eyes moved from the procession of knick-knacks to the window, then back again. This disappointed treasure-hunter was a second grade me. Spade in one hand, garage-sale metal detector in the other, I had spent my entire day attacking the lawn in hopes that it would surrender some shimmering bounty. With each false-alarm paperclip, my resolve seemed to strengthen, rather than deteriorate, as one would expect it to.

In the same manner, throughout the years, every tug of a shelved book that failed to trigger a sliding bookcase simply convinced me that it was surely the next book. But eventually, there came a day when I had run out of books to pluck and fixtures to wheedle. And there I was, a seven-year-old female Ponce de Leon with an unquenched thirst for a drink from the fountain of adventure. So what did I do? As the beams of sunset gave way to a dusty summer dusk, I tiptoed in my own footprints, past my parent's bedroom, out the back door, and into the yard yet again. I returned to the battlefield, armed with the shovel and this time my coin collection. I began to fill in the craters that I had created; a 2-cent piece here, a peso there; until my collection had substantially diminished in size. Before dawn crested the horizon, I was finished. My backyard, once seamless, level, and utterly boring, was now marred, scarred, and full of treasure. No child of the future would ever suffer the disappointment that I had!

I learned on that occasion that my quest for adventure, for meaning, would not always be as easily fulfilled as that of Treasure Island's Jim Hawkins, or H.G. Wells' Time Traveler. Sometimes, one must create meaning in meaning's absence. The discovery of an empty chest should not elicit disappointment, but excitement at the prospect of filling it with whatever you want! Such is the case with a blank canvas, ready to become a masterpiece, or an empty lawn, ready to be filled with foreign currency. Many people spend their lives attempting to discover the innate purpose of humanity. Many people are dependent upon the notion that we exist here for some specific reason, to meet some pre-defined need. Where is the freedom in that, though? There is no room for self-expression in a life where one's route has been drawn for them on some almighty map. Contrary to popular belief, a life without an assigned purpose is not dominated by ennui or despair, but rather, an exhilarating freedom.

When the world does not provide a clear path, no X to mark the spot, you have to hack your way through the undergrowth. And that ungraceful, stumbling gait is what makes life interesting. What merit is there to the simple following of a map? The true purpose is to create your own purpose. The real treasure is the joy of drawing your own map. It's what separates leaders from followers; pioneers from tourists, and it’s what has made me the person that I am.