What a sad little world we live on. There are no more monsters, no more Gods, no place left for the common man to explore that hasn’t been commercialized, exploited, or ravaged by those who’ve come before us.

Gone are the unclimbable peaks, the unreachable quests and the unbearable depths from which the human spirit can search for meaning.

Today, life is Googled, information is assimilated, studied, and questions are quenched before the spark of imagination even has a chance to flare. The slightest whim of curiosity is inundated with pre-assembled answers, reasons, rules, and absolute been-there/been-done statements of fact.

When I was younger I read Peter Benchley’s book, Creature, in which he writes, “A man needs something with which to aim his life at.” That statement is oh-so-damn true to me! A simplified mantra which reminds me that goals and dreams are needed in our lives. That without them, as I discovered while unemployed all those many, many months, is that without those dreams, without a target with which to aim at, you’re dead inside. There is a world of difference between living life and simply living; the former is the warmth of the sun on your face, the feel of full, ready lungs as you crest the top of the roller coaster, the latter is simply biological existence.

But in some of us burns a pesky little gene that we inherited from those who did climb mountains, sail the oceans singlehanded, or head out into the woods to live lives not known by common men in common hours. The gene fuels the need in us for the unknown and taunts us deep inside when we lack that abyss before us. Simply put, it is ingrained into our psyches to wonder what’s over that horizon.

To truly be alive you have to live: The adventurer’s heart needs that horizon; the poet’s soul longs for a taste of freedom from the prepackaged order and set answers of this sad little world.