The Travelers’ Prayer courtesy of Fred Blahnik: As I now embark on this lovely journey of a lifetime, I realize there is a strong possibility that I might never return home again. And yet I choose to go anyway. Why, you no doubt ask? Simple. Because the potential rewards of this trip far outweigh the risks. I could play it safe and remain at home—remain safely ensconced in my cozy cocoon over the next few weeks or even lay low for the rest of my life, if I so decided—but what purpose would that serve? Yes, what transcendent purpose?? The element of danger is what makes life exciting and ultimately worth living, and hence it isn’t something a person should consciously eschew in the name of increased longevity. Leading a safe, sheltered life may lead to more years on the surface of this planet, but those additional years scarcely qualify as living in a Homeric sense. A single-cell amoeba could rightfully claim the same amount of pleasure, yet leave behind no less a permanent legacy than human serial safe-seekers when both anticlimactically die and are thereafter flushed into a time-bereft oblivion they so richly deserve.
Fred's Soapbox 