I’m sitting here right now trying to process this.
On a whim, I traveled five hours to and from New York on Saturday. This happened on a day where the most interesting thing I was expecting to happen was to replace my wireless router and maybe catch the late night games.
I think the first thing anybody should know about me is that I love metal music and most sub-genres that tag along. It’s been part of my life since I began high school. And more important than that, it’s a huge way my best friends and I could be far apart and together at the same time.
I was relaxing when I got a phone call from a friend. “Guess where I am going today,” he said. “August. Burns. Red.“
I had to go. Here’s the catch: it was in Elmira, NY, which my GPS told me was 105 miles away.
Logic told me to stay home, do some homework, study…etc. I was going to the show.
So as I wheeled onto the highway something odd happened. The 105 miles to Elmira, NY turned into 160 miles.
I’ve gone too far, I thought as I jumped onto I-80.
After a while my mind began to drift. It’s funny how you get your deepest thoughts when your mind should really be elsewhere. About a thousand places elsewhere.
I drifted through I-80, my mind on autopilot. Same goes while passing Lock Haven. But at a point, and I don’t remember where, I snapped out of it and found myself in a beautiful valley, trees just beginning to change. Mountains suddenly erupted out of the ground.
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Everywhere I looked, I felt so small. I was on a vista viewing the world before me.
Depending on how cynical I feel I may or may not say I believe in god. I could care less about it most of the time, but as I smashed down the highway going 80, I have to say that I believed in something.
And it made me reflect. Not only on myself, but on everything.
Why is it that true reality doesn’t creep up on us until we’re past the point of its inception?
Why not every time you look at a mountain or canyon or ocean you feel the size of a flea? Or rather why do we feel so small at random, obscure moments in life.
Will we ever really know?
One of my favorite things in the world is staring out over a great view, and its an essential to all of the trips I take. The mountains of Peru, California, and the Poconos, or the ocean at the Jersey shore. There are some incredible places/landscapes and it does conduct a lot of deep thought. Just like you I always feel so small when I stand on top of the distance. For me, the only answer to the beauty of this earth is an artistic creator. A lot of scientific explanations seem plausible but I don’t think beauty is an accident. Theres nothing that can describe that magical/ miraculous feeling of standing before a beautiful world away from the noise and chaos of a world where buildings block our view. Its times like that of which you experienced in New York that give me hope and meaning. And every time I’m looking out on a view like that, I praise the lord for his beauty and power.