today's thought, as I crested the back side of big mountain and the panorama spread before me was filled with snow-tipped mountain peaks, greening valleys, trees galore and an endless blue sky, began with my thinking "I own the world."
this sounds selfish and egotistical, doesn't it? a little greedy.
I don't mean it that way, that's just the first way it comes to mind. when I revise it in an attempt to gain greater accuracy, it changes to "I'm on top of the world."
which, if you take literally, isn't accurate at all.
so I keep trying to make my meaning more clear: "I am so amazingly happy to be where I am right now, having accomplished what I just did, and I just feel in complete harmony with this glorious world."
too verbose.
"I love this world."
"I am one with everything in the universe."
"I just climbed both sides of this big stinking hill and I'm thrilled to be done and see the view from up here."
this is what was moving through my mind as I began the downhill coast, and I never did come up with the perfect statement. because it's all those things: the sense of accomplishment, the relief that the hardest work is over, the incredible view, my effort that earned that view, the fact that I'm out in this stunningly beautiful world and breathing pine-scented air, the deeply spiritual connection I have with being in the natural world.
it's why I ride, it's what keeps me getting on my bike again and again, it's why I work hard when I ride:
because I love that feeling that causes that phrase to bubble up in my mind, I own the world.
it's possible, I guess, in my own little unselfish way, I do.
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