Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Explorers
“Open?”
Not sure if it was a question or command, I popped the hood like I was an
old Chevy. When the dentist asked her
assistant for an explorer, I pictured Nicolet, Marquette and Joliet. (Blame
it on the Novocain.) They were among
Wisconsin’s earliest European explorers and their mission was totally different
than my dentist’s. The world they encroached upon was vast, mysterious and full
of promise. The world of my mouth is
small, well documented, at least by my dentist, and promises to give me grief
if I don’t take care of it.
In addition
to beaver pelts, the Voyageurs came in search of expansion and
understanding. They were literally drawing
the map. That map would be an essential
tool toward a larger world that offered riches to excite the imagination, and the
freedom to obtain them. With an entire
continent as the prize, the pioneers turned the pages of history and helped to carve
our modern identity. Given enough
frontiers, there was no limit to what they could accomplish, or so they
thought. In their stead, we logged,
plowed, mined and drilled ourselves into the present, an example of what can
happen when limits are few. When space did
become limited, we turned to outer space and, once we set our sights on it, needed
less than ten years to put a man on the moon.
Now,
it’s off to Mars, but I don’t think we’ll find a home there. On its best day, Mars can never match the
Earth, even at its worst. Our penchant
for pushing the envelope must be driven by more than profit, conquest, or sod
busting. We crave novelty and seem to
never get enough of what we think is progress.
Instead of permanent residents, we are more like visitors, who never fully
unpack before moving on. Ultimately, I
think we’re searching for that most elusive quarry of all – the comprehension
of ourselves.
Visitors
we are not. In fact, we are
indistinguishable from the Earth. Its
blood is our blood. We are made from the
same fiber and born of its past. And, we
are married to its future. Finally, we are explorers, in search of who we are. We have this old world before us, but need a
new view of our place in it. If we can
rediscover our mother Earth, the way we once knew her, we might also find
ourselves, a little less broken and a lot more united.
“You can close now. Everything looks fine.” For some reason, getting out of the dentist
chair felt like I was climbing out of an old birch bark canoe. Go figure.
Too long in one place, I guess. Still, I know my dentist’s careful exploration
can save me a lot of grief in the long run.
Hoping
this Christmas Season is filled with bright smiles and lots to explore!
PBob
