As I waited for boarding I reviewed the pictures I took during the past few days. For some odd reason I was reminded by what my existential writing professor had told me with his analysis of the theme of my writings. He mentioned that English mapmakers in the 16th century, when they reached the limits of the known world, would just write, “Beyond here be dragons.” I felt like I was standing on the edge of my own little map; worried that dragons might eat me and spit my skeletons into the abyss. I boarded the plane to Chicago with a mixture of hope and dread. I knew that soon I would be back on that ledge, facing those dragons, and pushing them farther into the darkness.
Intuition got a hold of me when I wrote the above paragraph in the Summer of 2003. Today, I’m putting all my eggs in a black basket with four wheels. Tomorrow, those four wheels will start rotating, carrying me, myself, and everything in between to places where dragons have been waiting.
Boulderdashing in real-time:
(updates in real-time via moblogging)
(Boulderdashing01)boulder or bust!
(Boulderdashing02)mile75
(Boulderdashing03)mile177
(Boulderdashing04)mile331
(Boulderdashing05)mile486
(Boulderdashing06)mile612
(Boulderdashing07)mile921
(Boulderdashing08)mile1030
Boulderdashing: AQAL Ground Zero
Boulderdashing: WTF Am I Doing Here?
Comments (2)
Man, I love the “Beyond here, be dragons” description of the unknown. It is so poetic and captures the real fear that we project outside our comfort zones.
Man, I love the “Beyond here, be dragons” description of the unknown. It is so poetic and captures the real fear that we project outside our comfort zones.
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[...] On a personal level I’m glad that, except for my mortgage, I don’t have any other outstanding debt. On the other hand, we’re all interconnected so this gives me little satisfaction and security. We’re all in this together. Our financial world is flat and we’re all headed to a place marked “beyond here, be dragons.” [...]