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| The Voyage of Life: Manhood by Thomas Cole |
{Note: The Journeyman Chronicles are going to be a continuing
feature. A journeyman is the stage
between an apprentice and a master. It
is where one has learned their craft, and begins to practice it unsupervised. It can also define one who is on a journey.
It this last definition that applies to the Journeyman Chronicles, I am on a
journey. From sickness to health, from
darkness to light, from weakness to strength, I am on a journey of discovery.}
The problem with being an adult is
that there is no path. There is no way, but
the one that you make. That path is
never clear, it is undefined and tenuous.
We can only illuminate the briefest area in front of our feet. We often stumble, unsure of our next
steps. We are blind to the future, subject to the
whims of causality; we live in seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and
years. We can’t know tomorrow, because
we cannot see over the horizon of now.
Our
life’s journey is one that we cannot plot out.
And if we could, it would be subject to the whims of our interactions
with the rest of the universe. We live
in the ever collapsing wave function of now, each interaction building onto our
subjective reality. Today, now, is all
we are guaranteed; our now is built upon our immediate reality. Like the mall diagram, we are here, under the
red spot of today.
It is
as if we are in a boat on a rapidly flowing river, we have no control over the
direction and flow, we desperately cling to our reality, not knowing what turns,
rapids and dangers lie ahead. We endure
the whims of the universe, we use faith to give us strength, we use reason to
derive understanding, and we use invention to refine our experience. Time’s river takes toward an unknown point on
the far horizon to the west, whether we want to or not.
