Create Many Paths
I am putting the finishing touches on the manuscript for Goal-Free Living. During the editing process, a lot of material has been left on the cutting room floor. From time to time, I will post some of these materials, starting with this one here. This piece talks about my cross-country trip, and a relatively long non-stop stretch from Atlanta to New Orleans. Eight hours alone in the car. I had plenty of time to think and reflect across vast reaches of land. I turned on my digital tape recorder and rambled some thoughts. I call this “The Road (I Wish Were) Less Traveled.”
On virtually empty two-lane highways, a few cars and trucks move quickly from one place to another. But do the drivers take time to look out the window and see what is around them? Or are they focused on constantly moving from point to point? Where is everyone going in such a rush?
My original objective was to use my drive time as an opportunity to listen to the tapes of the interviews I conducted and to take notes in my digital recorder. But I find my mind wandering during these vast stretches of nothingness. It is difficult to stay focused mentally. And maybe that was a good thing. Keeping busy during a trip is not the same thing as being in the moment. Allowing my mind to wander can in fact be an example of what it means to “be in the moment.” We often try and keep ourselves busy to avoid the thoughts in our heads. But creativity and clarity can emerge when the head is clear. Rather than cramming more into our grey matter, maybe we need time to empty our minds and create space.
In the distance I see a backup of cars and trucks. As I approach, the traffic begins to clog. I quickly go from zipping along at the speed limit to major congestion and barely crawling. How can this be? There were no cars on the road for many miles. I see a sign. “Construction 2 miles ahead.” Traffic slows further as people merge into one lane. This is a metaphor for life itself. We are often moving quickly along the highway of life, then when you least expect it, you hit a roadblock. If you are on a path that does not allow you to deviate, and others are on the same path, you have no choice but to wait in line with everyone else moving towards the same destination. This is what happened with the dot com boom followed by the dot bomb bust. Everyone was on the same highway (the superhighway) moving at breakneck speed, only to find that a speed bump in the road brought everyone and the economy to a screeching halt. What if, instead of designing your life as a highway leading to a goal you’re trying to reach, think of it as an ocean. When I was in Miami on a boat on the Atlantic Ocean, I was amazed at how few boats there were in the water. An ocean of choice stretched out before me. When you have limitless paths to take, there is a comfortable fluidity. There is more pleasure. And as you are on a different path than everyone else, you don’t get stuck in life’s traffic.
When yachting through your “open seas”, use a compass as your guide. Constantly readjust to make sure that you are tracking properly, as winds, rough seas, and other vessels can throw you off course. Make your adjustments in real time, in the moment. Feel free to travel off the beaten path. There are no real destinations in life, despite what you may have been taught from an early age.
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One Response to “Create Many Paths”
800 CEO READ
Indiebound
I remember now an experience a few weeks ago when I took a bus for a three-hour road journey to another city. Whenever I have been in Spain I have come used to benefit from these transportation services that network many regions in a comfortable, easy, and safe way. Or at least that was my experience until this time. As usual, I was travelling in one seat from the first line, behind the driver, to his right. I am very sensitive to movement in the back of the bus, or I used to be, but also in cars, and our family have many memories of the urgent stops we had to improvise on the spot during long journeys to get me back into “persona”. Yes, now is fun, but then…This time, as I have become confident I do not need to get upset, I was reading -it was a straight national road-. Then, the bends started. I stopped reading. Then, I realise the driver is driving very fast, and in a way that resembles exactly the image suggested by your wandering thought about …do the drivers take time to look out of the window and see what is around them?. So, I see that the driver is driving fast, that he turns his head to look up to the right, yes far to the right, then to the left…oh, what interesting cow there!, so a little farther back his head to the left, then goes back to the road -oh, yes, I am driving a bus-, then again, randomly to right, left, flowers here, a nice Spanish Southern black pig there -cerdo ibérico-, what a wonderful sunny day, tra la la la. Truly, this guy was very spacious but at the wrong time. What I really wanted to see is that he would get just focused in the road ahead and would leave for another opportunity the enjoyment of bucolic pictures from the countryside. I did not care whether he was getting into a creative mood and clearing out personal puzzles; I rather prefered that he would be narrowly focused in the matter at hand independently of whether his head was clear, emptly or creative. Instead, he seems to get interested again into driving just before the bends, once my heart has already jumped almost half away of my chest. I felt very unsafe. So, I start to feel very nervous and for several minutes I reherse mentally several potential scenarios for the possibility that I have to take inmediate action to safeguard the security of all passangers. This when I already have done HUMMMMMM!!!!! aloud several times with brick switches in my position, up to the point that neighbor travellers prompt to offer some sweets to soothe my supposely sore throat. But the driver back to enjoying…now so many exhuberant dark black bulls -yes, gorgeous but at other time, right?-. So I imagine I stand up and move to back seats in the bus -no, that’s coward and I am supposed to preserve our safety-, then I think I stand up in the middle of the hallway and warn everybody aloud we are in danger! -no, that’s very catastrophic and very dangerous in itself-, ok I will be assertive and direct and will say to the driver how beautiful is today out there!! -no, actually is not assertive enough of what I want to express-, so I will decide to ask him inmediately to stop the bus as I feel very ill -and will perform heavily horrible faces and twists- so that once outside and all curious have come down I will warn everybody the reality of our situation for the company to send another driver or call the police to take us home, then I realise is better to trust we are ok -so I don’t care about my life??-, and a few more scenarios passing through my mental screen at the speed of light. Then, thinking in my experience of years using this company’s service I realise this driver has to be a very professional one and just he is very confident being on automatic pilot, and trust his own driving instincts. I calm down, try to get back into reading, get interested in the plot -the written one-, and when I feel the universe is back to ok and we are not going so fast after all. But then I happen to peep carelessly to see this time that he is trying to open with both hand -lossely holding the steering wheel- a small package of sunflower seeds -it requires a lot of manuality to eat “pipas de girasol”…!!
So, all this story is to share that I think that in situations when people depends on others to feel safe, what is probably asked of the person from whom the rest depend is to be in charge and to show full committment to what is expected from him/her. And I think that it has something to do with supporting political decisions even when perceived not the most fair for all involved, but at least safe for the closest interested at hand. Somehow, a narrow perspective in the person trusted is prefered if it assures that the person trusted transmits security, beyond all open and fluid mindness of the world. Fear of not being safe or protected is a powerful drive, very primal and ancient, and not to be blamed as it can serve us to walk away from non rewarding situations -although also prevents us from embracing happiness-. You name the different situations in which appears -politics, health, career, relationships, financial,etc.-and you understand better my crazy hypocondriac reactions. Without feeling safe and cared for, all best intents and promises fall away like automn leaves, and once distrust enters the picture a crack appears in the established relationship that is very difficult to surpasse. And I mean with it that it can be a challenge to correctly interpret and convey the meaning of goal-free living, so that people do not make it equivalent with lack of committment masked with the robe of an attractive whised-by-all philosophy of living and enjoying the moment. So, does a goal-free person cares enough to stay reliable even when navegating in an open and tempting sea of possibilities?. And what kind of qualities have to be embeded in the communication style of a goal-free person so that clarity is established when dealing with others about mutual expectations, obligations and free-chosen committments?. I would like to find out the answers myself, but imagine that it much depends on the ammount of oneself, of heart and soul that go in the very decision of submitting to an ideally co-created agreement. And that, part is spontaneous and part meditated.