At the end of Tablet 3 in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s upcoming trip is referred to as a quest. I have always been fascinated with the difference between a journey and a quest, probably because I love traveling and want to correctly identify what type of endeavor I am taking. Based on minimal research, I have come to the conclusion that the difference is a quest involves finding a specific thing and a journey involves ending in a specific place. So if Gilgamesh is on a quest then what am I on? There are things that I am doing in order to find certain things like: discovering my passions, finding my soulmate, etc. But there are also things that I am doing to end up in a specific place. Is it possible to be on both? As I do anytime I have a question the internet can’t answer satisfactorily for me, I called my mother to get her two cents (I thought it was funny that Gilgamesh also went to his mom for guidance before his quest). The first thing she said she made very clear, “life is a journey.” She reminded me of my faith and said that no matter what kind of quests we embark on throughout life we ultimately work towards ending up in one place: heaven.
So as Gilgamesh works his way to Humbaba and I focus on the quest of not failing out of college, here’s to finding what your quest is searching for and loving the journey of life!
P.S. The featured image was taken of me by Olivia Mitchell.
That Letter C 
Here’s to your quest and to hoping you fulfill it…🥂
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The parallels you draw from the epic and your own life are fascinating to me. I had never thought about the significant differences between a quest and a journey and how both are important but serve completely different purposes. I couldn’t tell you where this quote is from (because I’ve heard it so often that I no longer know it origin) but it is one of my favorites, “Its not about the destination but the Journey.” I find this to be true in many cases, we sometimes get so caught up in reaching the end of a journey that we forget to have fun and learn along the way. I don’t really know where I was going with this long winded explanation, but in short, I completely agree with you about learning to love your journey.
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Hi Emily, I found this post very interesting because I think that what the Gilgamesh’s mom says: “life is a journey” is a deep sentence which have a lot of meaning, such as we are all in the same journey even if everybody is living it in different ways. I love the way you make the comparison between a quest and a journey: as Gilgamesh’s journey, I think that every human does his journey by looking for something: answers, success, love etc…
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