Where the Ocean Meets the Sky

The ocean and sky are often personified in literature to enhance the meaning of something so vast that you can ponder it for days and never come to a conclusion. The very depths of the ocean in which are living the most evil and ugly of creatures span thousands of feet until the rolling green foaming waves meet the ever changing merciless sky. One can only imagine what's below the surface of the ocean or what may be above the clouds. Those unable to think for themselves and who need a fallback believe that there is some kind of almighty being above the clouds who controls our very fate. I believe there's nothing but ever expanding space.

Anyway, back to the point. Think about this, the horizon is often used as a powerful metaphor. "Disappeared into the horizon" "Looking off into the horizon". The funny thing is, it doesn't exist. It's only a state of mind, much like happiness, love and hate. It is fantastically similar to life. You look for something and you know you want it so damn bad and you don't take your eyes off of it and you run and fight to get there. But you never will. Because it isn't really there.

But a picture says a thousand words. How about the picture you see everyday; your shadow. Remember Peter Pan? And his shadow? Well our shadows don't run away from us. They're always with us and always changing. But we can't get away from them. We can't catch them. We can't control them. The only way to get rid of it is to shut ourselves away from the light of the world. The light that shines across the horizon every day. The light that makes us open our eyes to the world. The light that shines on our obstacles. The light that makes our shadow is reality. No matter how much you wanna get to the horizon, reality will keep pushing it away from you. And you're never going to reach it.

The horizon is over rated. The horizon is what everyone wants. Running into the horizon stretches and malforms your shadow to look just as mangled as everyone else's who is running for the same horizon. Don't do what everyone else is doing. Stop focusing on the horizon. Turn around and let the world see you in a whole new way.

All of my crazy ranting has a purpose, I promise.

I went to the beach last summer looking the same direction as the other people on the trip. But when I turned around and found my own meaning for being there, I found the best thing I've ever seen. A new beginning. A reason to keep going. A reason to not need reality. A reason to recreate everything I stand for. It's all because of that one turn of my head that I'm still here. That I didn't give up on life. I had a plan before school started that year. I'd be gone. But I'm still here.

I am here.