We’ve tried our best to change the world. Like a gasp before a plunge. No other way but one. Submersion. Silence. The body. Evocative. Beautiful. Underwater. How far is the shore? Too far. Not far enough. No distance defies the human spirit.
Another gasps and takes the plunge. Submersion. Silence. Heartbeat. Stroke. Look around. There are more. When do we catch our breath?
Once there was a woman who swam further than all before her. She finally lifted her head from the water and saw she was alone. Neither coast—ahead or behind—in sight. She realized that it was only a matter of time before she would drown.
As she contemplated her end, she contemplated her life. Was the world better for her plunge? What about her life? She quickly said yes and yes. But then, something happened.
She felt the water begin to swell. She remembered the moon and her years of schooling. Yes, the gravitational pulls, the orbiting of moon, earth, and sun.
She recalled that she was part of a universe. Always in motion. Eternally still.
For hours she wrestled with this thought: “I gave my life to change the world, but I never knew the changeless.”
Perhaps the changeless saves us from our misdirected attempts at change.
Perhaps the margin of change for which humanity strives is its distance from the changeless.
Perhaps getting there is not a quest but a return home, where—for the first real time—we laugh with one another until the sun goes down and rises again.
Latitudes of Plenty 