For the first time in a few years, I am about to get on a plane for a cross-country trip. The caveman buried somewhere inside the primitive parts of my brain is jumping up and down, grunting at the idea of a multi-ton metal bird hurtling through the air at breakneck speeds. My stomach hears his grunts and churns in response. My damp palms suggest that they, too, find his unsophisticated argument compelling. In short, I am a bit nervous.
I’ve flown before, of course, though not particularly often. When it comes to traveling, I prefer to simply be somewhere without enduring the process of getting there. There is a certain surrender of control that comes with traveling, whether it be through following someone else’s schedule or literally putting your life in someone else’s hands. It’s not an easy thing for me to do, and the casual game of “what if?” soon becomes a frank consideration of mortality.
Maybe that’s too heavy an approach to a simple holiday trip, especially one that will culminate in a long-overdue reunion with my mom, whom I haven’t seen since I left Florida at the end of 2003. Still, I think it is important to have a realistic grasp of our own mortality, lest we treat people in ways that we think we’ll always have time to make up for.
As I mentioned elsewhere on this site, I am about to turn 30. It is a landmark, of sorts, and I am pretty happy about where I am as a person, emotionally and physically, as I approach it. I am happy to believe that if any day were to be my last, I would be remembered well and fondly. That said, I feel that I do have much more to do with my life, and I have the belief—its apparent grandiosity notwithstanding—that I will have some role in touching the lives of many others.
I am decidedly not a fatalist. I do not believe that we are destined to follow one path and that our exercise of free will is an illusion. Rather, I have a modified view of fate. I do believe that we are born equipped to do particular things and that we discover those things through our natural examination of our passions and talents. Our judicious choices guide us toward an optimum path, its groove carved a little deeper into the ground we walk, perhaps easier to fall back into if strayed from. But our choices are ours to make, and even the deep grooves can be ignored and satisfactory lives lived along the shallower channels. But the physical analogy ends there. I am not sure that the deepest groove—our optimum path—is always the one of least resistance. But I do believe that it is the one of greatest reward, and it's what I hope to find as I move along, enjoying the walk as I go.
I’ve flown before, of course, though not particularly often. When it comes to traveling, I prefer to simply be somewhere without enduring the process of getting there. There is a certain surrender of control that comes with traveling, whether it be through following someone else’s schedule or literally putting your life in someone else’s hands. It’s not an easy thing for me to do, and the casual game of “what if?” soon becomes a frank consideration of mortality.
Maybe that’s too heavy an approach to a simple holiday trip, especially one that will culminate in a long-overdue reunion with my mom, whom I haven’t seen since I left Florida at the end of 2003. Still, I think it is important to have a realistic grasp of our own mortality, lest we treat people in ways that we think we’ll always have time to make up for.
As I mentioned elsewhere on this site, I am about to turn 30. It is a landmark, of sorts, and I am pretty happy about where I am as a person, emotionally and physically, as I approach it. I am happy to believe that if any day were to be my last, I would be remembered well and fondly. That said, I feel that I do have much more to do with my life, and I have the belief—its apparent grandiosity notwithstanding—that I will have some role in touching the lives of many others.
I am decidedly not a fatalist. I do not believe that we are destined to follow one path and that our exercise of free will is an illusion. Rather, I have a modified view of fate. I do believe that we are born equipped to do particular things and that we discover those things through our natural examination of our passions and talents. Our judicious choices guide us toward an optimum path, its groove carved a little deeper into the ground we walk, perhaps easier to fall back into if strayed from. But our choices are ours to make, and even the deep grooves can be ignored and satisfactory lives lived along the shallower channels. But the physical analogy ends there. I am not sure that the deepest groove—our optimum path—is always the one of least resistance. But I do believe that it is the one of greatest reward, and it's what I hope to find as I move along, enjoying the walk as I go.
0 comments:
Post a Comment