Imagine yourself, standing in front of the departure
screen at an airport, flickering over with names of strange places, each
representing one more thing you’ll never get to see before you die… as the arrow on your GPS map helpfully points out: you
are here.
You were lost at first, but soon began sketching yourself a map of the world. Parting the
contours of your life, and like the first explorers, sooner or later you’ll
have to contend with the blank spaces on the map. All the experiences you never
had. The part of you still aching to know what’s out there…
Eventually these questions take on a way of their own,
and began looming over your everyday life.
All the million doors you have to close in order to
take a single step forward. All the things you’ve never done, and may never get
around to do. All the risks, that may or may not be real. All the destinations
that you didn’t buy a ticket to. All the lights you see in the distance that
you can only wonder about. All the fantasies that stays dormant inside your
head. Everything you have given up to be where you are right now. The questions
that you wrongly assumed, or unanswerable.
It’s strange how little of the universe we actually
get to see. Strange how many assumptions we have to make in order to get by—stuck
in only one body, in only one place at a time… Strange how many excuses we’ve
invented to explain why so much of life belong in the background. Strange that
any of us could ever feel at home in such an alien world.
We sketch monsters on the map because we find their
presence comforting. They guard the edge of the abyss, and force us to look
away, so we can live comfortably in the known world (at least, for a little
while). But if someone ever to ask you on your deathbed: “what was like to live
here on earth?” perhaps the only honest answer would be: “I don’t know. I passed
through once, but I’ve never really been there.”
