Sometimes the Missing Hat Is on Your Head

 

Have you ever been absolutely frustrated that you can't find what you are looking for only to finally realize, or more embarrassingly have someone else point out, that the very item you have been scouring the earth for is in fact in your hand or on your person?  Moreover, do we experience this pitfall on an existential level as well?

When the nature of things we seek leads us to believe that they are rare, or rather so special that they must be hidden far away from where we exist, this is a fallacy of reason.  Are not the things that closely surround us, by simple virtue of geographic relativity, things which are incredibly far from other persons who are themselves far from us?   Do those far from us yearn to know of the places that are common to us with the same fervor we do those that surround them?

Watching Steve drop through this corridor made me wish I was down there to see it for myself, 

but when I got in my boat and paddled down, I turned around and looked back upstream, noting that the eddy I took this shot from beckoned me just as acutely  now that I was no longer there.

So many people are on the never-ending search beyond the horizon for that which holds an answer or the final piece of human perspective.  The horizon is an illusion though; an illusion that can only be witnessed through existing only in one location in one particular moment.  A frame of reference in one location creates an apparent horizon far away.  But where that horizon appears to exist, there is another frame of reference that brings into existence a distinct horizon back at the original reference point.  Where is the true horizon?

Steve midway through closing the apparent horizon of the moment.  

It is conceivable that there are an infinite number of horizons that all meet in the exact position of any one of us at any particular point in time.  The beholders of these horizons create a circle of rays converging inward to ourselves as the radius.  Though this is a rather physical explanation, I think we very well often operate based on this framework when searching for answers, enlightenment, life fullfillment, or even just a new river to experience for the first time.  We tend to look far across the horizon, ignoring that which immediately surrounds us.  So many apparent horizons land right at our own feet

With so much to experience in our immediate proximity, why be anywhere else?

I guess there really aren't horizons, as they are merely vestiges of our own singularity.  But if we are to value the notion of them as a motivation to live life and always keep searching, then to make best use of them is to know that sometimes the biggest horizons are the ones closest to us.  Right under our nose.  And whether it is a beautiful unknown creek 30 minutes from West Knoxville or the relationship we never fully developed with a close relative, horizons are everywhere.  Do we really need to know where to look, or are the answers everywhere we look?

The answers we seek are all around us.