Our need for safety and security prompts us to lock the door and draw the shades, but opening doors is what got us here. Exploring is fundamental to who we are, but if the reward is going to be worth the risk, we need a plan for what we find.
EXPLORERS
“Open?” Not sure if it was a question or command, I popped the hood like I was an old Chevy. When the dentist asked her assistant for an explorer, I pictured Nicolet, Marquette and Joliet. (Blame it on the Novocain.) They were among Wisconsin’s earliest European explorers and their mission was totally different than my dentist’s. The world they encroached upon was vast, mysterious and full of promise. The world of my mouth is small, well documented, at least by my dentist, and promises to give me grief if I don’t take care of it.
In addition to beaver pelts, the Voyageurs came in search of expansion and understanding. They were literally drawing the map. That map would be an essential tool toward a larger world that offered riches to excite the imagination, and the freedom to obtain them. With an entire continent as the prize, the pioneers turned the pages of history and helped to carve our modern identity. Given enough frontiers, there was no limit to what they could accomplish, or so they thought. In their stead, we logged, plowed, mined and drilled ourselves into the present, an example of what can happen when limits are few. When space did become limited, we turned to outer space and, once we set our sights on it, needed less than ten years to put a man on the moon.
Now, it’s off to Mars, but I don’t think we’ll find a home there. On its best day, Mars can never match the Earth, even at its worst. Our penchant for pushing the envelope must be driven by more than profit, conquest, or sod busting. We crave novelty and seem to never get enough of what we think is progress. Instead of permanent residents, we are more like visitors, who never fully unpack before moving on. Ultimately, I think we’re searching for that most elusive quarry of all – the comprehension of ourselves.
Visitors we are not. In fact, we are indistinguishable from the Earth. Its blood is our blood. We are made from the same fiber and born of its past. And, we are married to its future. Finally, we are explorers, in search of who we are. We have this old world before us, but need a new view of our place in it. If we can rediscover our mother Earth, the way we once knew her, we might also find our true selves. What a discovery that would be!
“You can close now. Everything looks fine.” For some reason, getting out of that dentist chair felt like I was climbing out of an old birch bark canoe. Go figure. Too long in one place, I guess. Still, I know my dentist’s careful exploration can save me a lot of grief in the long run.