Still Catching A Ride
I was sixteen. I remember the sensation: to lay on the surf board supported by movement on moving water, paddling toward the horizon, past the break point, that point where the energy radiating under the surface, shoreward reaches a crest. At that point the wave begins to break, energy manifests as a collapsing liquid wall. The challenge was to wait, patiently judging the approach of each wave, then to select the one which seemed of sufficient size, angle and velocity to “catch” a ride to the shore. Was “success” guaranteed? What an absurd thought! Failure was more experienced than success. And yet every moment was exhilarating…
No support, no prop, nothing firm — just ocean!
How much one needs a faith
in order to flourish,
how much that is “firm” and that
one does not wish to be shaken because one clings to it,
that is a measure of the degree of one’s strength
(or to put the point
more clearly, of one’s weakness).
… Metaphysics is still needed by some;
but so is that impetuous demand for certainty that
today discharges itself among large numbers of people
in a scientific-positivistic form.
The demand that one wants by all means
that something should be firm
–this, too, is still the demand for a support, a prop,
in short, that instinct of weakness
which, to be sure.
does not create religious, metaphysical systems,
and convictions of all kinds
but–conserves them.
–excerpt The Gay Science, Book 5, Section 347 by Friedrich Nietzsche
It’s time for a tune is it not? This by Rush seems right: Closer To The Heart.
