Postcard: Horizon
No. 016 - on what lies ahead.
Postcard is a weekly curation of things I think are beautiful or interesting. Each postcard will be named after a word and contain something to listen to, something to look at, and something to think about. I welcome you to share any thoughts in the comments. Thank you!
horizon:
(n.) The visible horizontal line (in all directions) where the sky appears to meet the earth in the distance.
(n.) (figuratively) The range or limit of one's knowledge, experience or interest; a boundary or threshold.
(n.) The range or limit of any dimension in which one exists.
(n.) Any level line or surface.
†Meanings from Wiktionary
Something to listen to:
“Green Hill Zone” - Sonic the Hedgehog by Masato Nakamura
Don’t you just love the energy, the sense of forward momentum and exploration and optimism in this piece? Doesn’t it just make you smile and relax? Like driving down a coastal highway in a convertible on a sunny spring day where the air is pure and God is everywhere and then you look out to your right and see—
Something to look at:
Something to think about:
You see what you look at.
You don’t see what you don’t look at.
In life, it is a natural and instinctive reaction to gaze at something you wish to avoid. Unfortunately, this all but guarantees that you will hit it. (Oops!)
We used to understand reality by perceiving it directly. We saw with our own eyes, heard with our own ears, and maybe occasionally got a whisper of gossip or news from a member of another tribe. Now, though, we receive updates about the world constantly, a kaleidoscope of sounds and perspectives that overwhelm the senses and assault the spirit. There are so many people mainlining spiritual schizophrenia just because they can’t stop looking at the screaming infinite noise machine.
But living in a world overflowing with this much data and information, what we look at really is a choice. The Default Culture would have you believe that it isn’t. That all morally good people are paying attention to the same things and freaking out about them in the same way under the same secular-materialist moral framework. And that doing this is, in fact, a driver of “progress,” ushering in a bright and beautiful future using the energetic forces of fear and anxiety.
This is an arrogant and contemptible lie.
There are so, so, SO many things in life and the world that are more important than anything The New York Times has ever written about or ever will. You could live a perfect life without looking at a newspaper headline ever again.
You do not need Current Thing. Current Thing needs you.
So on this Friday, one of those liminal days between summer and fall where the clouds hovering over New York City have been painted on, I invite you to think about what you look at and who that serves. What’s on the horizon in your life and future is tethered to that choice.
In closing, I offer you a heartfelt benediction:
May you see something so beautiful and so good when you focus your gaze towards that far-off point where the sky intersects the ground. You will be there someday.
"mainlining spiritual schizophrenia" is a great term for it. thanks, Matt.