By Chris Trout | April 27, 2008
This morning, I sat on the beach reading Eckhart Tolle and thinking those "Who am I (really) and why am I here?" thoughts that come up at the beach. Blinded by a bright light, I looked up to see the sun dancing on the water. Not just your normal glittering, but dancing-on-the-water-picture-perfect-sail-into-the-sunset kind of glittering. It took my breath away.
As my eyes moved out toward the the horizon, the dancing light got more and more dense until there was nothing but a vibrating silver sea of light. "Does it get any better than this?" I wondered. As I returned to my book, I scanned left a few feet and was stunned. The rest of the cove was dark and murky and depressing. I looked back to the right. There was the glittering miracle. How could this be? How could the scene shift so dramatically in just a few feet? How could these two oceans co-exist in the in the same moment in the same little cove? The first lifted me up, the second dragged me down.
(I won't belabor the metaphor here. You get it.)
When I returned to my book, Tolle began a story about Stephen Hawking, one of the world's most famous theoretical physicists. Hawking has a motor neuron disease has left nearly his entire body is paralyzed. He can't speak except through a computer he works with his eyes. He can't eat, go to the bathroom, bathe or otherwise function unassisted. Commenting on his own life in an interview, Hawking was quoted as saying, "Who could have wished for more?"
I guess he chose to focus on the glittering sea.
Comments on this entry
Beautiful - brought tears to my eyes!
Hi Chris: What an authentic and lovely and pertinent and meaningful piece.
Thank you!