long walk home

There's something about taking a long (or even long-ish) walk that tends to dislodge thoughts that have embedded themselves in my cortical folds. It gets things churning and excites the individual thoughts so they bump into each other, engendering entirely new and often useful or interestingly contemplative thoughts.

Today's train of thought went the way of utopias - those mountain-top experiences that slash open one's expectations and let a ray of new stuff in. I think for my age, I've probably had more than my share of mountain-top experiences. They've happened all over the world, in huge cities and in the backwoods, in all sorts of communities - with folks I'd known for years and with folks whose paths only crossed mine for a few weeks or even hours. I've literally stood on top of a mountain, gasping at the vastness and the height and the depth and the symmetry. I've listened to a Tanzanian choir harmonize a European hymn into something uniquely African. I've prayed the Lord's prayer in a room full of people doing the same thing in a dozen-odd languages.

Invariably, I leave these utopic experiences with the longing to carry a piece of it with me. And I suppose I do, in a way - I'm shaped and formed by each of these experiences, and these are the memories that don't tend to fade. But on the other hand, these experiences also have another aspect in common: they end. You can't live at the top of a mountain or inside these perfect emotions. A simple fact of life. And if I spent my whole life chasing these fleeting moments, that'd be somehow pathetic. So I live my life, trying to maneuver myself into situations that are calculated to give a decent return on happiness but also maintain a good life balance.

I tend to react to these mountain-top experiences with the urge to change my life dramatically and drastically, to reflect this huge change that the situation has wrought in my soul. And almost invariably, I come back to my daily grind and the intended changes seem daunting and then after a while even... worthless. Why was it that I wanted to change again? The status quo is so easy to maintain! Daily life has such inertia.

I guess I need to keep putting myself in the situations that cause me to want to make positive change. And eventually the metamorphosis will catch up with me. I hope.