All Pursuits Worthwhile: Staring at the Dividing Line

Each day the sun will drop from sight and return on the other side of the world. It passes through the horizon, the divider of earth and sky. Though the distance between our eyes and the horizon remains the same, our intimacy with it varies as we move forward in time.   As I gaze towards the ocean, and the sky lights up reflecting colors, lights, and shadows from below to above, I waver between notions of helplessness and purpose.

Our perceived timelines are so small, it is difficult to feel like we are enacting any great change on this world. Still, the amount of damage and benefit we affect on our community is enormous. The history of this world has created our present.  It is our choice to engage with it positively today.  I am finding myself less worried now about receiving or finding definitive answers, less concerned with a career choice. I've been around too many good friends and family passing on lately, and all were happy until the end.  It gives me hope that I too will end up happy.

There are ladders to climb, vines to swing, branches to grasp and tree houses to erect. People on all sides of this universal tree that we play and share our stories in are expressing their insights, knowledge, experiences. So many people in this diverse ecosystem to receive truths from! One suggests all you need is a college degree, masters, and PHD and you can teach Grad school! Another winks at you saying, Come get your hands dirty and learn how to work with natural systems to instill permaculture design into the landscape and attitudinal and design principles in yourself! Then some beauty says something in a foreign language and laughs and disappears into the next tree and you would could spend the rest of your life trying to understand her laughter. Complete sets of answers for your own contentment and stimulation are available in 1, 5, and 20 year plans!

These paths would all do me well. Anything that would allow me to sustain my existence would be positive, yes (or should we quarry about happiness and suffering, what is good and what is bad)? All paths allow for endless growth depending on one's commitment and engagement. Here I am though, hopping one from one path to the next, committed in the beginning and then interest drifts like a bird in the breeze. I am six years out of High School and my experiences have piled up like the bottom of a composting toilet. Does the substance of what you've accomplished matter, or is it how you personally recollect your past? Is what matters what you leave behind for the next generation?  The ripple effect of their memories and lessons that they carry in their hearts?

Here I am, 3 years plus on Maui and I feel the need to follow a new path, though not a new beginning. I seek distance. In order to center, I remove myself from what is familiar. I take away the associations and am left with my naked self and core beliefs to guide me. I seek physical and emotional distance from the landscape I've resided. The last few years have been several journeys, both overlapping and overwhelming. It has become a mashed potatoes of grief, ecstasy, love, sadness, beauty. Mix in New York, Maui, Kauai, Wisconsin, with dreams of Alaska and Spain.

Keeping myself moving. Haleakala, Northern California, Australia on the metaphorical horizon.

Just another rainy morning on Maui. Take what you need, give back what you can,  Spread the Aloha,

Matthew