Vision Quest
Who am I, what is the nature of this world?
Time never flows in a straight line, it bends and veers. I can remember being sixteen again, sitting at a picnic bench just like this one. Writing and daydreaming. The same as I’m doing now.
Can we ever move away or closer to our inner selves?
I left home at 18 on a vision quest. I wanted to find, I wanted to seek, I wanted to experience adventure and come back with something real. I searched for the answers to the great questions:
Who am I, what is the nature of this world, what is the nature of this self?
I left, I traveled, I gave, I lost, I changed. And I failed.
No immediate wisdom came from the journey, no inner transformations and no wisdom grew closer. Just a little less sure the nature of things, and caught in the same cycles of self-doubt and insecurities.
Sitting on benches still, unsure about the progress within. Or even, if there is such a thing.
I still worry about everything I see. I forget about lessons learned, about trust and journeys and divine interventions. That every walk could prove fruitful, if only I paid attention. That everything worth doing takes great effort, but that great effort is really nothing at all.
I try my hardest, but can’t remember doing anything difficult or challenging. It all seemed like a walk downstream, in hindsight. I forget the challenge immediately, and only remember the accomplishment. And even that is a ghost.
Is that what we’re chasing here?
Ghosts?
Ghosts of accomplishment, ghosts of advancement, ghosts of value, ghosts of loss. My worst day on earth is still just a ghost of a memory. It spins outward from the center. It has no center. It just spins.
What to grasp, what to hold? That I could sit here and enjoy these trees, enjoy the river. Laugh at the absurdity of the ghost world.
It comes, it goes. No worries, no losses. Just ghosts who know their ghostness, and ghosts who don’t.
A vision quest to wisdom is a vision quest to nowhere. Stay home and fold your laundry, pay your bills.
Truth is, we invented the vision quest because we wanted entertainment and meaning. And depth. But we are never to believe it is real. Or that anything else is, either.
Wind and trees and birds singing again. All so carelessly, all so chaotically. That we could all write like that, a symphony of cacophony.
A bird sings. The leaves change. Do I?
