Finite Thinking in an Infinite World

Earlier this week I wrote about how travel is good for the soul and created a post on social media posing the question of what it does for others.

A yoga friend commented that she loved to travel because of the anonymity of it; she loves being another smiling face in the crowd. What a beautiful idea, I thought, and it made me realize how much travel connects us to humanity. It reminds us that we are a small part of the greater whole.

Travel humbles us and makes us see that our every day lives are not as large as we sometimes believe.

As I sit in my living room this morning, looking out into the woods, I think about how this place is a world of it’s own. It’s quiet here. The dogs snore at my feet, the heater kicks on, I hear the house settle. There isn’t much happening. I feel peaceful and serene; hOMe is a place of my making. I recognize how safe I feel and how much I control my surroundings. Perhaps that’s why I like it so much?

I begin to ponder beyond the walls of my home, just outside. The woods have a lot of activity of their own – birds, squirrels, chipmunks, deer, wild turkey … It’s a separate reality, or so it seems.

And I reflect back — to the sea of people Maddie and I found ourselves in. We were a spec, less than a spec, in every place we visited in California. One place on this earth, for a brief span of time. How many more places are there like that in the world?

Travel is an amazing reminder to not take the self so seriously, to realize that each of us matters but that there is so much more going on than we could every fully comprehend with our primitive brains.

The world is a big place with lots to see and do, yet we get caught up in our heads, making this world, this place, this moment the only place we live, the only thing that matters … finite thinking in an infinite world.