The Water is Fine

It has been brought to my attention that I have not posted anything on this blog in quite some time (thanks Charlie). I suppose that occasionally we get preoccupied with living life and don't have time to reflect on it, much less write about it. As luck would have it, I find myself tonight doing less living and more reflecting. In fairness, the last few weeks of my life reminded me of my capacity for living fully. The bards and poets of old often tell us to gather our rosebuds while we may, or to resist the all-too-common traps of quiet desperation, and I now realize that I regularly seize the day. I take comfort in that. People will refer to wanderers like me as lacking direction. They liken us to ships sailing without sails or steam, left to the mercy of the currents. It is now clear to me that their analogy is accurate, but the perspective is skewed.
A ship drifting at sea is not without direction, but rather its direction is determined by something outside of the ship itself. The crew's ignorance to the inevitable destination does not negate the existence of a destination. I admit, openly and without shame, that I am adrift at sea, and I acknowledge that I don't know where I am going. But let us not confuse the fact that I will end up somewhere, and I believe that is where I am supposed to be. When I was a kid I imagined my sofa to be a tiny boat that would carry me around the world. As I grew up I realized that I would never make it around the world by sitting on my sofa. I joined the military and requested an overseas assignment. I went to college to broaden my options. I joined the Peace Corps to see Africa. I went to graduate school in Europe, and am now teaching English in Japan. I've nearly made it around the world, and all I had to do was get off the couch and throw myself into the flow. I didn't decide this course for my life, but I jumped into the current with enough faith that it would carry me to where I needed to be. There is nothing wrong with letting something bigger than ourselves guide our path, but we have to have the courage to jump. As was said by a newly-baptized, escaped convict in "O' Brother Where Art Thou", Come on in, the water is fine.