Explorers inspire me.
[Updated; original post Nov 2013]
I’ve been feeling restless. The last few days I’ve been waking up around 3AM, with no possibility it seems, of falling back asleep. This is really unlike me as I am typically a pretty deep sleeper. I’ve recently closed my business and have an idea for starting something new, but I’m hesitant about the future.
After tossing and turning for an hour last night, I crawled out of bed so as not to wake Klink. As I walked out from the bedroom I glanced up and saw this larger than life-size image of a Tiki God (standing on guard like Tiki Gods do) in the middle of my living room. It shook me to my core as he looked so real in the shadows of the morning. As I rubbed my eyes awake, I slowly realized it was a combination of the light of the November moon, the textured stone and wood mantle of our fireplace — and the floor lamp.
I’d see my friend for the next few nights (not giving it too much attention but always making sure he was there) until the third or fourth night when I finally remembered that I had watched the movie Kon-Tiki just the week before. Kon-Tiki was an ancient Polynesian god, and the name given to the balsa-wood raft used by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl in his 4600 mile expedition from South America to Polynesia in 1947. Thor and his crew set out to prove that Peruvians settled the Polynesian Islands in pre-Columbian times using only a raft and the ocean currents for their journey.
This was true faith.
The raft was to be made exactly as it had been made thousands of years ago, no wire and no modern tools, except for a radio, a watch, charts, sextant, and metal knives. They were to be carried and guided only by the currents of the Pacific Ocean and the faith that their dream could be proven a reality. It would take 101 days and they had no back up plan, no help, no life raft and no one to save them if they failed. It was literally an all or nothing type of situation—and it was completely intentional.
There was a defining moment in the movie where a crew member panicked when he saw the raft slowly breaking apart under his feet and grabbed a roll of wire he had stowed in his trunk. He begged and pleaded with Thor to use it as he truly believed they would all perish at sea within days. Thor took the wire and cast it into the ocean with the insurmountable faith that this journey would be completed as he had envisioned. Thor and his crew eventually survived the journey and made it to the islands, proving it could be done. Proving it was possible. He believed in something unseen and followed his faith, not letting anything or anyone stop him.
Courage. Determination. Belief. Knowing.
I awoke early one morning hoping to see my friend one last time, to thank him for his gift and to say goodbye, but he was no longer there. The full moon had moved on in the dark sky, the light had shifted through the windows, and the floor lamp, once again, became a floor lamp. My friend dissolved into the ether, proving to me, once again, that time is always moving forward and my focus should be too.
