You are not trapped, though it may feel that way.
You are not in a tunnel and there is no light - you are on a field.
A light rain fills the air. There is wind sometimes, and it is cold.
Behind you are the mountains and valleys of your life.
Some are forbidding and barren. Others, filled with grass and brilliant flowers.
Ahead of you, there's a fog.
...
The past is behind you.
The future is opaque.
...
You step into the fog.
Tomorrow, I'm going to start off again.
Thoughts of my last attempt filter through my mind. I feel my heart speed up just a bit. Ugh.
I'll head east, following the A1 and side roads, though I'd like to try out the M1 and see how the bike reacts to the highway.
I'll be doing shorter stints, at least at first. I'm not used to riding motorcycles for long periods of time, and I want to be sure to get some hours of work, reading and exploration in during the day.
These next few weeks are going to be curious.
My posts from now are probably going to become a bit scattered, as I can't anticipate what the coming days will look like. I promise to take a lot of pictures for you though.
Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.
- Brandon Sanderson, the Stormlight Archive.
I've been thinking about purpose a lot over the past few days.
This journey, adventure of mine - I don't want to give it a clear destination. That's been the idea all along - the journey should be the goal inherent in itself. Take things as they come. But that idea has some caveats.
No matter what, once I finish this, I can't allow it to be for nothing. I don't want to be an idle tourist, purposeless and adrift. My greatest fear is looking back on this trip and thinking "it was nice, but ultimately a waste of time".
So. Questions. Questions I'd like to answer along the way, or start formulating answers to.
Refining ...
Aristotle & co. will help for the last question. The first three are ones that I think I can only address by thought, reading, writing and action. I think each question deserves its own answer - something I'm not prepared to give as of yet, though I have some guiding ideas.
That said ... I've been thinking a lot about where I want to be. And I have some really clear ideas right now.
Dream life? Right now? I want to be doing research. Or tinkering with some fascinating front-line engineering projects - building Martian probes and rovers or sending stuff into deep space.
Space, is, the final frontier. It offers nearly limitless possiblity, and in an optimistic world so much of humanity's future is going to be dedicated to it.
And, space is fucking awesome, excuse my French but it's true.
(SMACS 0723. Most objects in the picture are galaxies - the one in the center is 4.24 billion light years out, while Earth is 4.54 billion years old - so, the light from this galaxy was first emitted only 300 million years after the formation of the Earth.)
