Horizons

Many books I have read about personal evolution have used "passage" or "path" as a metaphor for the process of aging and developing through life. It's a good metaphor. As I grow older, I am beginning to realize that my path has taken me over many horizons. Each horizon, a breakthrough of knowledge or understanding, has deepened my appreciation of life and made life just a bit less baffling. The most enlightening views of life are from high places, horizons which require a difficult climb to get to them. The climb can be schooling or a relationship or a disease or a trauma, from which a person survives with the ability to incorporate the lessons of the climb into the new view of life afforded by reaching the new horizon. Few of us willingly tackle a climb. Most of us travel paths which encircle the mountains which could afford lofty views and new insights. I have chosen to tackle a climb to a higher horizon a few times in my life. It has always been very hard but worthwhile. I have also been forced by severe diseases to climb two very steep horizons which seemed impassable through much of those climbs. The horizons I crossed at the end of those climbs were the most enlightening of all. Eventually I will climb the final human horizon. And, like anything else in life, the preparation for being fit for that final climb is hard work.