Eyes Wide Open
Writing a journal would be easier if we knew where the beginning was or at least understood where it belongs.
To begin this journal, I could start from today, but certainly, today is not the beginning. I am almost paralyzed by the fear of starting if I can’t explain that this is not the beginning. A journal is like a journey with a beginning and an end. Still, it is profoundly and intimately affected by the traveller’s immediate past and the desires for their hopeful future.
But a journal is not like a journey in that it really doesn’t have a destination. Maybe it is unsuitable for a pilot, whose life is determined by destinations, to keep a journal with no place to go. That is the dilemma of time, the paradox of past, present and future. My journal should be in the present, coming from the past and heading somewhere in the future. I wish I knew where I was going, but at least I know where I have been.
Life is so unlike flying. When flying, I always know where I am going. I don’t necessarily know where I am or how to get back to where I started, but I always know where I am going. I have said many times that I have never truly been lost. How could I be lost if I knew where I was going? Have you been there? Have you ever flown, shrouded in mist and surrounded by thunderstorms, low over a rainforest that goes on as far as the eye can see, while trying to get to a distant clearing in the forest represented by an imaginary place in your mind. No matter how ethereal that place seems, you always know that it indeed exists and that you will find your designated clearing in the forest if you keep your eyes wide open.
Life’s destinations, however, are not so certain, and that is what makes a daily journal so interesting. There is no assured outcome. We record what we see and predict what we hope or believe will happen, and then decisions and events shape the result. The pilot’s credo is to record the journey as best as we can and to safely land where we may.
