On land, the tuggings of the moons can somewhat safely be ignored my men, and left to the more pliant senses of women and seeds and an occasional warlock. But at sea even males are victims of the rise and fall, the twice daily surge of the waters they float on, and willy-nilly the planetary rythm stirs them and all the other voyagers.
MFK Fisher
In the days, long past, when crossing an ocean was a true ordeal, perilous, expensive, and seemingly endless, people underwent an existential change. On those massive ocean liners, powered by steam and the brawn of faceless nameless men, people would eat their steak and potatoes, drink draught beer, smoke lean cigars, talk listlessly to a compartment mate, then drift out onto the deck to try to gauge their location, their speed, their place in the world. Was it the sea? The vast unfettered night sky? The movement of the ship rocking them into a dreamlike trance? What was it that caused people to drift into a different consciousness? With all the water around them, and the moon given free reign, no mineral laden lands to block it's magnetic thrust, I like to think that the moon created a neap and ebb tide out of the water in the voyagers' bodies, realigning them with the natural flow of the vast Earth. In those days, families left their homelands with naught but a few scant coins, a duffel of clothes, and the hunger of memory and hope in their hearts. The young leaned on the old, the men gathered daily to trade second hand knowledge like a commodity, and the women sang to their babies and convinced themselves that they would make it to a new world, succeed, and see their mothers and fathers again. At the other end of the deck, artists and tradesmen would read newspapers, drink cognac, and pace impatiently, eager to reach the other side of the sea. It would take over a week. A week of drifting, of slowing, a week of staring out at the glint of steel grey sea under charcoal white sky, or the deep purple-blue-green unearthly glow on a hot sun drenched sky. How the sea must have played tricks on them! At times they must have looked out over the railing and thought the sea was higher than the boat deck. Other times sounds and smells must have come to them from across the vast breaks. With nothing else to occupy them, the sea must have claimed their souls for a time, shifting priorities, slowing down their gait, lifting them and setting them down over and again.
It was a burning hot June day in Athens, Ohio when I experienced a shift in time that I've tried my whole life to realign. It was the day of my graduation from Ohio University, and I sat impatiently with my friends as the keynote speaker droned on about the ways in which technology would be changing the world. When it was time, we walked to the stage, received our diplomas, listened as our names were called out, walked to the side of the stage, had our picture taken, and walked out a set of double doors into the stifling heat. It was as if I was in a dream, or a movie where the protagonist is shown in slow motion - indicating a sudden revelation or realization - when I walked through those heavy doors into the world. I looked for a familiar face, I looked for my friend who had gone before me, and I waited for my other friends to walk through the same doors, I listened for the applause of family, I looked for anyone to acknowledge the moment... only to find myself completely alone, pacing like a lost soul awaiting perdition. A few people were scattered around, but their voices came to me as if through water, as if I was suspended halfway between the sea floor and the surface. I waited in angst for someone to appear, and after a few minutes my sister found me and, smiling, pulled me out of the morass. It was those few lost minutes I have been chasing for the entirety of my adult life. That summer, I went to Idaho to work for my Uncle at his State Park, which had for two previous summers been a source of joy and exhilaration for me. Not so that summer. I walked around without any pleasure for those three months. I had no desire to explore the canyon like I used to. I only sat on an old lawn chair and read endlessly, or lay on my cot listening to music, wondering what I could possibly do to save myself, and I mourned the loss of the life I had known, the ease of it all.
I believe we all suffer from the same angst. We have all become targets. Our priorities are dictated to us, our desires are subverted from the original to live well and peacefully into a desire to overcome our brothers and conquer the living world. We can agree now that we all love the money more than we love God, and at heart we know this is wrong. All day we say to ourselves that those in power have it wrong, that the world is failing, that they are feeding us lies, and that somebody should do something to change it all. At the same time we've forgotten how to change ourselves. We've become truly docile, domesticated, and subdued. We're fed images of suffering around the world and in our own backyards, and at heart we feel we should be doing something to help our fellow children, but we have no ability to change the minds of the despots and oppressors. So we say it's too late, our paths are set toward the inevitable end. We have been offered the chance with every waking sun to seize control of our lives and the course of humanity and we have simply let it slip through our fingers because we have been sated by comforts and the idea that we are freer than most, and that's good enough.
But I'm through with that negative thought process. I've undergone a grand Sea Change. Like an old soldier coming home across the sea, I'm shaking off the heartbreaks of my youth and looking towards the horizon with a sense of optimism. One can look at human history and see it as a downward spiral from the garden to the ash pile. We can trace the arc of history like an arrow shot from the castle towers, and we can see ourselves at the apex, beginning the trend towards a terrific crash. But I ask, how many times have we gone to the edge, compelled to jump into the abyss, only to pull back and change the forces that push us? How many Kings, swept into the destructive vacuum of power struggle, have capitulated to the servants in order to preserve the race of men? How many tyrants have battled against their own people only to realize there would be no future with the path they have chosen? We have always overcome our destructive tendencies, and when the times are most dire, we have collectively awoken to shake off the dust of apathy, and followed the lighted path of righteousness. For myself, I have already lived with boredom, with capitulation, and negativity. I've played the role of the cynic and pessimist. I can't wake up anymore, look at Anna, and justify being the child I once was. It would be foolish to think that she would put up with a man whose heart was filled with venom, whose soul was all coal and ash. I can see how foolish I was not to at least attempt to live. Happiness is not hard to find, indeed it isn't a place or an object to be found. It's simply a choice, like everything else in life, it's a decision one has to make to become happy. For me, to keep learning is a joy. To try something new is a joy. To improve myself is a joy. If we stop learning, if we've decided we have it all figured out, we might as well not lift ourselves out of bed in the morning. Better to admit to ourselves that we know nothing at all, that the not knowing is the important thing, the best way to live. Only then can we see the world from a fresh perspective, a hopeful one. I owe her that much...
Until we meet again...
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