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| "Walk backwards," said my father.
"That's what he said?"
"That's what he said. We spend our entire lives walking forward, and specific muscles get strengthened, while others are neglected. Walking backwards changes that."
I didn't know how to respond. It was a curiosity, at least. Why would a man walk backwards? It is so very awkward, and embarrassing, really. We spent the rest of the car ride home speaking of lighter things, but my mind dwelt on the very concept.
So I tried it.
First of all, it is every bit as embarrassing as I surmised. It takes two to three times longer than walking regular-like, so three times as many people see you on the street. At first, I see them a long ways off, whether in a car or walk/jogging towards me. I imagine them seeing me walking, but a little awkwardly. Then, as they approach, they realize that I am shuffling along, toe-heel. They smile, or look elsewhere, as if everything is normal. Nobody has ever asked me why.
I found that the thought of walking backwards was absurd, and absurd things are oftentimes discarded from my mind due to pride. The idea, as logical as it may seem, runs into a wall of normality. I become frozen in my tracks. However, the few times that I have gone ahead with an idea, I find it greatly rewarding. In addition, nobody points and laughs, nor chases me down with sticks and rocks, as in my mind's eye. The first minute is difficult, but the mind adapts with surprising speed.
The one thing I did not foresee was how truly philosophically revolutionary it would be. Walking backwards started as a physical exercise. As I plodded along, I realized that I could not see where I was going. I was forced to take quick glances, but largely, my feet were required to adapt to an ever changing landscape. I had to make assumptions on my direction.
When I looked up, I saw the sidewalk shrink. The trees grew smaller instead of larger. The scene felt like the rewinding of a movie. The reduction of my speed also gave me time to reflect on the present. I saw the spring trees clearer, with their budding flowers. Things scattered lawns told stories. And then it hit me.
We spend our entire lives walking backwards.
The human mind is one that heads in one direction, while taking advice from things in the past. Once in a while, we take glances at the road ahead, but largely, we rely on historical precedent. Go to school. Do this job. Raise your children this way. We buy books to help us on our journey, take advice from others. It is as if two people walked backwards side by side for a while, one telling the other of things they have seen. Our existence is glances ahead, while 'standing on the shoulders of giants' in the past.
And this is where the Christian mindset acknowledges such things. I look forward to a heaven that I cannot even imagine. In a recent bible study, Joice read from her favorite verse, Isaiah 65, describing heaven. We shall not remember former things, there shall be no weeping, the lion shall chew straw like the ox. "How is such a thing possible?" one of the members said, "it doesn't make any sense." And really, it doesn't. It doesn't make a lick of sense to me. I have no idea what heaven is like. I've been told many things, but I understand that they are all wrong. All I get are glances forward, while my eyes are fixed firmly and guided by the things of the past. | | |
| I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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| http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/9/234340/6189/142/695504
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| When times are good, the country is proudly capitalist. When times are bad, the country turns markedly socialist. | | |
| On the current economy: "I don't worry too much about pointing fingers at the past. I operate on the theory that every saint has a past, every sinner has a future." -- Warren Buffet, Oct. 2, 2008 | | |
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