"The Going Itself Is the Path"
I dream! I dream of a quiet, little box where I can write eternally! The utter, utter dream is to have a quiet, big veranda near the beach so that I can hear the ocean waves splash across the way — but I would settle for a quiet, little box.
I tried. I tried to describe it to a friend. The world is opening up. It has dangers as well of course — but it also has delights. I can't! I can't describe it properly. Perhaps I already have. I've ranted so many times now about how my life has unfolded into more dimensions: black-and-white to color, flat to formed, muted to musical, blurry to crisp. Yesterday, I realized that some of my insane feelings are because I don't have paths anymore.
I used to tell myself I needed to be conventional. I used to tell myself I had to choose one of the few paths that everybody else chooses. Somehow, via tribulations and joys, I broke through some weird barrier, and now I am on the other side of an invisible wall. Now, I am in nature.
Imagine with me: imagine you are on a train, and various tracks lie before you. Some tracks are good, some tracks are bad, and there are only so many tracks: maybe ten in all.
You choose one rail, and you take your seat. The car rumbles, and you settle yourself with a book. Suddenly, the train lurches forward, faster and faster. You peep out the window and see a broken bridge racing toward you! You panic! You yell at the passengers next to you! You run to the conductor and tell him to stop! Death approaches! He ignores you, sends you back to your seat! Madness!
You look out the window, and the train careens off its tracks and plummets. Your stomach lifts into your lungs, and you want to puke. You see the ground approaching, and you brace; you don't know why, but you brace. Your eyes are clamped, muscles tense, and!
And nothing. You keep waiting. Your whole body is wracked with tension and fear. You don't open your eyes; the end is mere moments away.
But it's not.
Finally, you peek. You're sitting in the grass! Trees here, animals there, streams just beyond, mountains in the distance. The train is nowhere to be seen — much less the tracks.
Which way do you go? Which way do you go?! You don't know. You have no tracks to guide you, no train to carry you. You just have to walk. You just have to explore. You just have to adventure!
You feel a tad insane because you long assumed tracks were all you had; trains were the only way to travel. The openness, the vastness: it stretches your imagination beyond what you could have imagined. It stretches your heart out to hope. Fear: fear sputters up out of old, cold corners, but there's so much to see and do that fear is harder and harder to hear.
There are dangers of course — don't be a careless dummy — but the dangers are real: steep cliffs, unpredictable weather, the need for food, etc. You pause; you try to remember all the fears you used to make up: they seem so distant, hard to recall because you have to face real, tangible issues.
And there are delights of course. You've been sapped of the desire for that mythical thing they call security. Now, you just have the vast landscapes stretching out from you. Now, you must simply face each day: the plants, the animals, the water, the earth.
You cast your eyes left and right, unconsciously searching for the comforting tracks, but each day dissolves that impulse a little bit more. Each day pulls the landscape wider and higher. It's terrifying! But you don't fear — not the old way anyway. It's just a mix of awe and confusion and yearning and so much more — so much that you can't articulate.
And so you take new steps each day: timid steps because the train still exists in your memory, but you've stopped trying to pick a direction. Each day is a new trip in any direction.
I tried. I tried to describe it to a friend. The world is opening up. It has dangers as well of course — but it also has delights. I can't! I can't describe it properly. Perhaps I already have. I've ranted so many times now about how my life has unfolded into more dimensions: black-and-white to color, flat to formed, muted to musical, blurry to crisp. Yesterday, I realized that some of my insane feelings are because I don't have paths anymore.
I used to tell myself I needed to be conventional. I used to tell myself I had to choose one of the few paths that everybody else chooses. Somehow, via tribulations and joys, I broke through some weird barrier, and now I am on the other side of an invisible wall. Now, I am in nature.
Imagine with me: imagine you are on a train, and various tracks lie before you. Some tracks are good, some tracks are bad, and there are only so many tracks: maybe ten in all.
You choose one rail, and you take your seat. The car rumbles, and you settle yourself with a book. Suddenly, the train lurches forward, faster and faster. You peep out the window and see a broken bridge racing toward you! You panic! You yell at the passengers next to you! You run to the conductor and tell him to stop! Death approaches! He ignores you, sends you back to your seat! Madness!
You look out the window, and the train careens off its tracks and plummets. Your stomach lifts into your lungs, and you want to puke. You see the ground approaching, and you brace; you don't know why, but you brace. Your eyes are clamped, muscles tense, and!
And nothing. You keep waiting. Your whole body is wracked with tension and fear. You don't open your eyes; the end is mere moments away.
But it's not.
Finally, you peek. You're sitting in the grass! Trees here, animals there, streams just beyond, mountains in the distance. The train is nowhere to be seen — much less the tracks.
Which way do you go? Which way do you go?! You don't know. You have no tracks to guide you, no train to carry you. You just have to walk. You just have to explore. You just have to adventure!
You feel a tad insane because you long assumed tracks were all you had; trains were the only way to travel. The openness, the vastness: it stretches your imagination beyond what you could have imagined. It stretches your heart out to hope. Fear: fear sputters up out of old, cold corners, but there's so much to see and do that fear is harder and harder to hear.
There are dangers of course — don't be a careless dummy — but the dangers are real: steep cliffs, unpredictable weather, the need for food, etc. You pause; you try to remember all the fears you used to make up: they seem so distant, hard to recall because you have to face real, tangible issues.
And there are delights of course. You've been sapped of the desire for that mythical thing they call security. Now, you just have the vast landscapes stretching out from you. Now, you must simply face each day: the plants, the animals, the water, the earth.
You cast your eyes left and right, unconsciously searching for the comforting tracks, but each day dissolves that impulse a little bit more. Each day pulls the landscape wider and higher. It's terrifying! But you don't fear — not the old way anyway. It's just a mix of awe and confusion and yearning and so much more — so much that you can't articulate.
And so you take new steps each day: timid steps because the train still exists in your memory, but you've stopped trying to pick a direction. Each day is a new trip in any direction.
It is a delight with terror in it! One's own self to be walking from one good to another, walking beside Him as Himself may walk, not even holding hands. How has He made me so separate from Himself? How did it enter His mind to conceive such a thing? The world is so much larger than I thought. I thought we went along paths — but it seems there are no paths. The going itself is the path.- C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
You paint such an exciting scene! I can't help feeling like this is freedom, the way we humans were created to be.
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