The heart beats with longing over the
thought of green pastures and the beginning of tomorrow. It
anguishes in the thought of the eternal today and finds itself
trapped by its own Fear and Insecurity. The longing for something
else—that thing beyond the horizon, the sound known but
unheard—drives one to the point of insanity and exhaust.
The wanderer sees the man in his
field, toiling away day after day. Not lost on him is the simple
poetry of creation and cultivation, and yet it is not enough. Still,
he finds himself ever trapped by his desire and longing, never able
to cultivate anything of his own for fear it will not be magnificent
enough, grand enough, special enough.
The wanderer moves on, spell bound to
the idea that if he just keeps pushing he will find the thing he
needs to fulfill his every wish and desire. He climbs another hill
and views another valley. Still, the next is no better to him than
the last. Forever, he's looking back on the idea of the past, the
idea that somewhere there must be something just as good-as perfect
for him, and mesmerizing for him, as happy for him—without seeing
the beauty and the splendor in front of him.
The wanderer is not the adventurer.
The adventurer walks amongst the fields, views the other's harvest
as good and right. The adventurer sees each new valley and takes in
the beauty and splendor and uniqueness of each individual leaf and
ant.
While the adventurer desires more of
the beauty he sees around him, the wanderer needs more. The wanderer
has a hunger—a need, a desire—that can't be sated because inner
peace eludes him. He looks for something that he can never find
because it does not exist.
The wanderer dies dissatisfied with
life. The wanderer has no home to rest in, no hearth to warm him and
no loved ones to soothe him. The adventurer finds a home in any
place, is at peace with life continually, and has accepted his fate
openly.
Inside my heart I am both a wanderer
and an adventurer. I am the hybrid they call Dreamer. I long for
those things which eternally escape me—the image I cannot see, the
music I cannot hear, the touch I cannot feel, and yet a part of me
wishes only to see, hear and touch those things to sing of their
praise and glory to the world—to share the beauty that they hold
with my everything. How do I balance the hunger and the peace—the
oneness with my surroundings with the angst I feel in my stillness?
Both the adventurer and the wanderer express their desire with
travel. They go. They act. The move. But when feeling onesself
pulled in two directions, often still is the only place to be. In
essence, one becomes rooted to the ground just as the seeds which the
farmer has grown in his fields which surround us.
My feet desire no more to wander.
They've walked their paths and seen as much of the world as they
wish. My heart is full of love and hope of the future. It, too, is
okay with being still for the moment. It is my mind which causes me
trouble—the mind which searches for a greater truth, a mind which
seeks for the answer unseen, looks for the truth unknown, searches
for a change, a difference, something to mark itself as right or
wrong which has hitherto been unknown. The mind: Self's greatest
trickster and adviser, confidant and betrayer. The question is never
“is the thing I believe the thing I know?” the question is “is
the thing I believe true?”
How much of truth is the reality that
we let ourselves believe in? How willing are we to trick ourselves
into one thing because we have decided that our wandering self will
not be happy, and therefore we must instead plant and root in place.
How often are we just “good enough” because great is already
taken.
I fear just being good enough. I fear
not being the best. I fear just getting by, just satisfying, just
being the best of undesirable second choices. I used to fear
loneliness, but what if that would be better than the lie which my
brain tells that I'm the one perfect for another. What if, in the
valley that is my life, it's only good enough for another wanderer
because the others that have been traversed have already been taken.
I fear that mediocrity of life. I fear being settled for. Even
though plants will blossom just as beautifully in my soil and the
adventurer will see my fields and smile and be aware of my beauty, if
the wanderer is only content and not enchanted, will it be
worthwhile? I fear just being a place of comfort and contentment for
those without any other home. I want to be someone's paradise. I
want to be the wanderer's all. I want to be the thing, the place,
the idea and the ideal that, when someone looks at me—when the
adventurer and wanderer's paths cross, they find their souls home and
they stay still, not because they are pulling against each other and
at odds, but because I am the place where they truly belong.
