En route to Newark I read an article about a retiring minister. One of the stories he told at his farewell speech was about being in a boat at sunset. He looked off into the horizon and saw a golden hue across the water. So he steered the boat out to sea in the hopes he could immerse himself in the gold. After a few minutes he realized that he had been in the gold all along.
I'm not sure what lesson he extracted from this experience because the article didn't say. But the idea resonated with me. I spend a lot of time thinking about what is out there, what can be achieved or grasped if I string together a series of successes. Press down on the throttle a little harder, will the gold to come a bit closer. But if you spend all of your time apart from contentment and relying on external factors to bring you happiness it's going to be a frustrating life. I try to calm my mind periodically and, taking a cue from my sketch writing teacher, embrace the process. Embrace obscurity, toil, failure, and what exists today.
I've developed a cynical mind and anytime an idea pops up that could possibly be branded as New Age I summon my inner bully and kick it in the stomach. This idea of a golden hue just out of grasp certainly could fall within that category. But any true intellectual journey is going to have to ignore popular conceptions and labels in pursuit of an individual knowledge and truth. So why not pull from New Age wisdom, religious traditions, secular thought leaders-- hell I'm sure even John Daly has a thing or two to say.
It's a nice image, seeing the wise old man in the boat figuring out a way to live.
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