Fearing the Future

This bird was just chilling out on our boat, taking a break from it's hectic world.

The world is getting caught up in the land of the future. The world was a much better place before people decided they were going to get the next best thing and spend all of their money on the useless electronics that our country says are the best for them. How can we think that motors that pollute the air with gases and sounds are good for us? How can we think that we need phones when they can cause headaches with the radio waves they send out? As people we spend too much time trying to get the next best thing. Have we ever wondered if maybe the best thing was the last best thing? Not the next best thing? Imagine when all people had were row boats. They would get tired and couldn't go very far. They probably were in very good shape from rowing everywhere, but it's just such an effort to get from place to place. Now think about this. Everyone is rowing around, and suddenly, someone goes past them moving with no effort at all. They're sailing. Suddenly, the world grows larger; people can make it farther without expending so much energy. They're experiencing new things, discovering new places, and getting small beer bellies. Then, someone decides that sailing just isn't fast enough. What do they do? They create a loud, smelly, disruptive thing called a motor. People are turned off by it, but they want to be able to go faster, to discover more before the other people. They want what someone else has. So they get their own. Suddenly everyone has one and they're polluting the air with smells and chemicals. This is the part where the best thing was the last best thing. Not the next best thing.

Last night, I kayaked back to my boat instead of motoring out there. It was quiet, peaceful. I could actually hear myself think. The only sound was the sound of my family in the dinghy, loudly motoring back. But it felt like I was able to breathe. Like I was taking a break from the chaos of my day and am able to just think. You never really realize how amazing that feeling is until you experience it. It's like that moment between waking and sleeping where you think to yourself "Today was a good day". But it was lengthened. It lasted for longer. It was like that moment multiplied, and it relieved my mind.