Lately, I have been reading a book about how longitudes were found, and it is not a long book by any measure, but it seems as fast as I can read in general, when I pick a book up, I pick it up for days and months even. And while poetry has had its heyday, and while prose has had its place, it has been a while since I have picked something so accurate, so factual, so real. Learning about how humanity overcame a glorious challenge is, of course, important, but the reason I have enjoyed this book is because of the many, and primarily loud, failures. I have enjoyed the intrigue, the depravity, the lowest of lows people can go to claim their name to fame, or simply to say that they were right, the sheer perseverance of an honest pursuit in the cannon fire of misdirects and lies. Stories, after all, follow life, and life happens without the coat of paint, without the masks of characters and metaphors. Sometimes, we must read that which really happened.
I wrote this and forgot about it, and when I reached the last page of this book, I happened to be in a plane, flying over more cities than I could ever count or name. I remembered it then, the passage I had left writing midway in the wake of something better, something more profound. But the thought, my awe at every convenience, little or large, is with me still, and it has inspired me. No, not to pursue some grand pursuit. At least, not yet.
These words I write each day are not grand. This discipline that wavers like deadwood floating on water, often diving under only to pop back up again owing to forces out of its control, is nothing remarkable. People live far more inspiring lives than I do, so I must keep an open mind for what comes my way. There are, of course, moments when life asks you to step up into greatness, but we can pass them by like we pass by the most mundane store in the neighbourhood, no name, no sign over it.
Everybody does it, but for a few of us, provided we keep an open mind, its austerity becomes a call to open its door and walk in. Now, I could not tell you why, but this life has begun to feel like a door closed for far too long. I might fling it open from the inside and see what happens.