Sept. 26, 2008
I've reached the Atlantic. Two days ago, I hitched northeast through Nova Scotia to the northern tip of Cape Breton Island and the tiny village of Ingonish - home to one of the great remote golf courses of the world: Highlands Links - a 1939 Stanley Thompson design. I played 36 holes and then hiked out to a headland called "Middle Head" where I hit a golf ball off a clifftop to commemorate the successful crossing of the continent. I then hiked home along the beach under the brilliant stars to a little beachside hotel called the Glengorhm.
Yesterday I hitched around the top of Cape Breton Island along the famous "Cabot Trail" - Nova Scotia's answer to California's Big Sur Coast. I caught seven rides and arrived at dusk at the tiny port town of Port Hood on the Gulf of St Lawrence. Today I'm headed south to Halifax and over the weekend I will cross the Bay of Fundy via ferry to St. John and return to the US along the coast of Maine.
This journey has been a life changing experience and in recent weeks I've really begun to understand its impact - its meaning. To share this with you will require some real time and thought, but I can say a few things breifly here.
#1) It's all about connections. I've often heard people say success is all about "who you know." But how do you know those people? Did you meet them? Did your parents or friends meet them? In other words, every person we "know" has entered our lives through our families and friendships and the paths we have chosen and you will come to know many more people along the way if you are open to it. So "who you know" is not a static thing. There are many friends and important connections out there waiting for each of us if we choose to find them. So really, success, growth and fulfillment happens when you put yourself out there, open yourself up to other people and possibilities and make connections that will grow the stable of people "who you know."
I'm not saying change will come overnight or simply if you desire it, but desiring it is certainly the first step and like everything durable and meaningful in life, you must begin somewhere with a seed or a foundation and build on that. The change will come eventually, I promise. What is possible for one man is possible for all. I am not an exception to the rule and I've known many others like me who've experienced the same thing in their own way...at all ages.
#3) Authenticity is everything. It is human nature to want to please other people, especially our parents and when my dad became ill it was especially difficult for me because I've been somewhat rebellious (or at least, very much an individual) over the years and certainly chosen a path very different from the one my dad might have chosen for me. My dad is very traditional and I know he would like to be able to measure my success and growth in more concrete terms...or maybe he'd just like to have a grandson or granddaughter to bounce on his knee.
Since he became sick I've been feeling an urgency to show him the value of the path I've chosen in tangible ways so that he can be proud of me as his son and proud of himself as a father. But my life has been built on experiences, on internal growth, on friendships and human interaction...how do you measure or share that? No matter how much the beauty of a sunset stirs your soul or the bond of a friendship brings meaning to your life it is difficult to quantify the value of that or prove its worth to another person. If you paint the sunset like Monet or turn the friendship into a profitable alliance in business then you have something you can measure, but that doesn't change the fact that the original, intangible source of that concrete success was valuable all along.
This journey has been like my life in microcosm. It knew it was possible from the beginning because I'd experienced it before. Not just the hitchhiking, but the human interaction - the magic element, if you will. I knew that I would find people along the way that would not only give me rides, but would be eager to share their ideas and perspectives, the places they live and love. I knew there were people out there who share my passion for life...tons of people, a majority of people, and if I put myself out there and turned on the camera and opened my eyes and sharpened my pencil I was confident I'd be able to capture some of the essence of that passion...that "thing" we all live for. So this journey is my painting. It is my book. It is my movie. It is my way of trying to make something concrete out of the intangible or as my friend Georgia would say, "bottle the magic." And hopefully, in the process, I will make my father proud and help him better understand me...all by simply being 100% authentically myself.
#4) Have faith in life and each other. There are a million horrible ways to die. More bad ways than good. Life has a way of humiliating us all in the end. So let's stop pretending we are immortal or building walls around us under the illusion they will keep us safe. We are all going from A to B one way or another. It is a personal choice whether we live with courage and style or with constant fear and denial.
Its like flying in airplanes. Statistically, it is safer to fly in an airplane than to drive in a car, yet an airplane is "unknown" to us...how does it fly? So every time we go up in one we are convinced it is going to crash and everytime we drive a car we have the false sense of security that we are in control. Get over it. Pay attention to what it true. Airplanes are safer than cars. And dying in an airplane crash is probably one of the more dignified and painless ways to go. AND on the other end of an airplane ride there is a beautiful city, or island or continent full of adventure and romance and mind and soul enriching experience...so get on the airplane. Or at least tear down the wall and leave the house.
We are a nostalgic species and we love to glamorize the past...the "Greatest Generation", the "Golden Era", blah, blah, blah....Now our country and the world is unsafe and we are all going to hell in a handbasket and the kids are fat and angry and unhappy. Really? I bet this perception became widespread right around the same time cable television became widespread. Now when a murder happens in Texas or Toronto or Toledo we are all aware of it instantly and opinionated fear mongers like Nancy Grace spend months rehashing the same grisly murder night after night BECAUSE WE WATCH IT and her sponsors pay for OUR ATTENTION. I am not saying the world is one big cuddly, cozy place, but I don't think the United States is any more dangerous today than it was thirty or forty years ago. I know New York City isn't and Venice Beach California isn't and Bridgeport, CT isn't and Miami, Fla isn't and Chicago isn't, etc, etc, etc....
I just hitchhiked across the continent and I don't think I am lucky that I made it safely. I think I would've been extremely unlucky if I hadn't. In other words we can live with confidence that 99.99999 % of people are decent, caring human beings just like us or we can constantly look over our shoulders for that .oooo1% that wantonly wishes us harm. Those are pretty good odds, get on the airplane.
In sum, I feel like we need each other now more than ever and it is obvious that the walls we've built are not working. They never have. The plague is inside the castle. We measure America's greatness by inclusion: civil rights, women's rights, due process, representation, etc....let's not let the perception of "division" become a reality and actually divide us. We are still a great nation and in many ways greater than ever before. This journey has helped reaffirm my faith in people and my country. I hope I'm able to convince others of the same.
Thanks, John
Yesterday I hitched around the top of Cape Breton Island along the famous "Cabot Trail" - Nova Scotia's answer to California's Big Sur Coast. I caught seven rides and arrived at dusk at the tiny port town of Port Hood on the Gulf of St Lawrence. Today I'm headed south to Halifax and over the weekend I will cross the Bay of Fundy via ferry to St. John and return to the US along the coast of Maine.
This journey has been a life changing experience and in recent weeks I've really begun to understand its impact - its meaning. To share this with you will require some real time and thought, but I can say a few things breifly here.
#1) It's all about connections. I've often heard people say success is all about "who you know." But how do you know those people? Did you meet them? Did your parents or friends meet them? In other words, every person we "know" has entered our lives through our families and friendships and the paths we have chosen and you will come to know many more people along the way if you are open to it. So "who you know" is not a static thing. There are many friends and important connections out there waiting for each of us if we choose to find them. So really, success, growth and fulfillment happens when you put yourself out there, open yourself up to other people and possibilities and make connections that will grow the stable of people "who you know."
#2) Believe change is possible. I've heard many people say that its impossible to change after the age of, say, 25. Well, I can promise you that's not true and I challenge all of the pessimistic naysayers who hold this view to get off of their collective butt and do something that will push their personal boundaries and preconceptions. This journey has altered my perceptions of people, the world and myself profoundly. Certainly it is a culmination of many years of challenging myself to learn and grow and think about things in new ways, but there came a point about three weeks ago when I actually began to feel different. It is difficult to describe, but it was as if the many indelible experiences and personal lessons of this journey finally coalesced and sunk in and I just got it. What were previously just moments of inspiration, glimmers of truth now feel permanently a part of me. They have become what I would call wisdom.
I'm not saying change will come overnight or simply if you desire it, but desiring it is certainly the first step and like everything durable and meaningful in life, you must begin somewhere with a seed or a foundation and build on that. The change will come eventually, I promise. What is possible for one man is possible for all. I am not an exception to the rule and I've known many others like me who've experienced the same thing in their own way...at all ages.
#3) Authenticity is everything. It is human nature to want to please other people, especially our parents and when my dad became ill it was especially difficult for me because I've been somewhat rebellious (or at least, very much an individual) over the years and certainly chosen a path very different from the one my dad might have chosen for me. My dad is very traditional and I know he would like to be able to measure my success and growth in more concrete terms...or maybe he'd just like to have a grandson or granddaughter to bounce on his knee.
Since he became sick I've been feeling an urgency to show him the value of the path I've chosen in tangible ways so that he can be proud of me as his son and proud of himself as a father. But my life has been built on experiences, on internal growth, on friendships and human interaction...how do you measure or share that? No matter how much the beauty of a sunset stirs your soul or the bond of a friendship brings meaning to your life it is difficult to quantify the value of that or prove its worth to another person. If you paint the sunset like Monet or turn the friendship into a profitable alliance in business then you have something you can measure, but that doesn't change the fact that the original, intangible source of that concrete success was valuable all along.
This journey has been like my life in microcosm. It knew it was possible from the beginning because I'd experienced it before. Not just the hitchhiking, but the human interaction - the magic element, if you will. I knew that I would find people along the way that would not only give me rides, but would be eager to share their ideas and perspectives, the places they live and love. I knew there were people out there who share my passion for life...tons of people, a majority of people, and if I put myself out there and turned on the camera and opened my eyes and sharpened my pencil I was confident I'd be able to capture some of the essence of that passion...that "thing" we all live for. So this journey is my painting. It is my book. It is my movie. It is my way of trying to make something concrete out of the intangible or as my friend Georgia would say, "bottle the magic." And hopefully, in the process, I will make my father proud and help him better understand me...all by simply being 100% authentically myself.
#4) Have faith in life and each other. There are a million horrible ways to die. More bad ways than good. Life has a way of humiliating us all in the end. So let's stop pretending we are immortal or building walls around us under the illusion they will keep us safe. We are all going from A to B one way or another. It is a personal choice whether we live with courage and style or with constant fear and denial.
Its like flying in airplanes. Statistically, it is safer to fly in an airplane than to drive in a car, yet an airplane is "unknown" to us...how does it fly? So every time we go up in one we are convinced it is going to crash and everytime we drive a car we have the false sense of security that we are in control. Get over it. Pay attention to what it true. Airplanes are safer than cars. And dying in an airplane crash is probably one of the more dignified and painless ways to go. AND on the other end of an airplane ride there is a beautiful city, or island or continent full of adventure and romance and mind and soul enriching experience...so get on the airplane. Or at least tear down the wall and leave the house.
We are a nostalgic species and we love to glamorize the past...the "Greatest Generation", the "Golden Era", blah, blah, blah....Now our country and the world is unsafe and we are all going to hell in a handbasket and the kids are fat and angry and unhappy. Really? I bet this perception became widespread right around the same time cable television became widespread. Now when a murder happens in Texas or Toronto or Toledo we are all aware of it instantly and opinionated fear mongers like Nancy Grace spend months rehashing the same grisly murder night after night BECAUSE WE WATCH IT and her sponsors pay for OUR ATTENTION. I am not saying the world is one big cuddly, cozy place, but I don't think the United States is any more dangerous today than it was thirty or forty years ago. I know New York City isn't and Venice Beach California isn't and Bridgeport, CT isn't and Miami, Fla isn't and Chicago isn't, etc, etc, etc....
I just hitchhiked across the continent and I don't think I am lucky that I made it safely. I think I would've been extremely unlucky if I hadn't. In other words we can live with confidence that 99.99999 % of people are decent, caring human beings just like us or we can constantly look over our shoulders for that .oooo1% that wantonly wishes us harm. Those are pretty good odds, get on the airplane.
In sum, I feel like we need each other now more than ever and it is obvious that the walls we've built are not working. They never have. The plague is inside the castle. We measure America's greatness by inclusion: civil rights, women's rights, due process, representation, etc....let's not let the perception of "division" become a reality and actually divide us. We are still a great nation and in many ways greater than ever before. This journey has helped reaffirm my faith in people and my country. I hope I'm able to convince others of the same.
Thanks, John
2 comments:
Glad you made it back home!! From your friends at Highlands Links!
this is so brilliant, life-affirming, inspirational and, above all, genuinely and authentically you: prophetic.
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