Monday, March 22, 2010

Thoughts from Ireland and Scotland

March 22, 2010

As I write this opening, an overwhelming sense of astonishment seems to confound me…
This past week, I traveled the Celtic world as I have dreamed about since I was a skinny adolescent boy. I drove through the green country side of Ireland, gazed down the jagged cliffs of Moher, drank a beer in Dublin on Saint Patty’s Day, climbed the Scottish Highlands and touched the historic stone of medieval castles. Yet despite my valid effort to describe these things, language has a certain inadequacy, a certain inherent deficiency in translation.
Quite frankly, I am lost for words, not in aptitude, but by the very limitations presented by language itself when expressing the profound. I could never fully sum the accumulation of wonderment, new friendship, and emotions that resulted in this trip. Nor could I fully translate the atmosphere of Dublin in the late hours of Saint Patty’s day, or the way a tiny Scottish village looks in the morning light.
But I suppose that’s why I have decided to wander, as I have never truly believed in the transcendentalist doctrine of some writers, who, living in their cabins stripped away from the bustle of society, suggested that the mind is the only necessary vessel. I argue, as significant as the mind may be, there is no supplement for direct experience- there is no substitute for smelling, tasting, seeing, breathing, hearing, feeling the richness of this magnificent world. And for those sound in mind, embracing the truth of open-mindedness, I believe that wandering can advocate extraordinary things, such as wisdom, tolerance and maybe even, spiritual abundance.
Wow, I’m having some deep thoughts tonight! Perhaps I will leave you with this as my introduction and continue soon with my separate blogs for Ireland and Scotland…

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