“…he was like a man who stands upon a hill above the town he had left, yet does not say, ‘The town is near’, but turns his eyes upon the distant soaring ranges.” Thomas Wolfe, from Look Homeward, Angel
“…a man who stands upon the hill…” Isn’t that what you’re doing here? Climbing up and away? Marching higher, one step on the path at a time, so you can reach the top of the goal you set before yourself? Isn’t our mission to climb, to ascend, to rise up and beyond? What we seek is atop the hill, not down in the deeply-rutted bandwagon road that loops around and around and around and around the hill.
“…above the town he had left…” Our grimy town was Smokesville, right across the polluted Tar River from smoggy Ashburg. We’d had enough of being poisoned, so we geared up and left. Walked away! Moved out, moved on. Good riddance! The choice was made, and the exodus is underway. There is no room again for homesickness, and how could there possibly be - were we not sick enough and sad enough in that home that we left it?
“…’The town is near’…” Ooooh, how it might seem easy to just look back over our shoulder and say, “The town is so near! Right there! I know every street and alley, every smoking area and corner store! I could just retreat backwards, and rest and catch a break!” But, in those moments, inside each of us, we must always remember that we purposefully left that sooty boondocks behind, so we could rise above to a new and better place. Just because smoking is nearer, and more familiar, and seems like a quicker out, there is no reasonable purpose in clinging to what we have already shunned.
“…but turns his eyes to the distant soaring ranges.” There is nothing behind us that we don’t already know. Haven’t we been there and done that? And, if there was anything behind us that served a healthy purpose to our moral values, then why did we denounce all of it and end up here?! No, my friends, the answers you seek are ahead of you. Turn your eyes to the path before you, and work ; many of the answers are found along the trail leading up the hill, and you can only collect them and know them as you keep ascending upward. Then, summiting the hill, itself, reveals an incredible answer that cannot be described, only accepted by those who make it. Now, turn your eyes to the distance. The future is open before you! Other valleys, other mountains. Other choices, other challenges. More and more milestones from here to the horizon…and the rest of your smoke-free life to discover them all.
“…he was like a man who stands upon a hill above the town he had left, yet does not say, ‘The town is near’, but turns his eyes upon the distant soaring ranges.”
STORM: 969
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