“But why cook your food or make your tea that way, when you can just press a button or turn a knob and have it done so much faster and cleaner?” she asked.
“Because I enjoy it,” I said, “I find it calming and clearing.”
“Okay, I get the aesthetics, but after a while the fun is gone and it’s just extra work and it doesn’t make any sense anymore.”
“It makes sense to me.”
“It does sometimes, yes.”
“Are you ever tempted to just do it the easy way?”
“More often than I want to admit,” I laughed, in spite of myself.
“So what do you get out of it?” she asked. “Honestly, I want to know.”
There is a star high up in the sky at night, a star the sailors love, a star the weary traveler at night searches for. It is the North Star, Polaris, and it is directly over the North Pole. If you can find the North Star, you can find the north, and if you know the direction of north, then by default you know which way is south, west, and east. If you can find the North Star, you are not lost. And it’s easy to find because it is directly above the top right star of the “dipper” portion of the Big Dipper, also known as Ursa Major.
On a clear evening, you are never truly lost. But sometimes there are clouds, and sometimes the clouds last a very long time. When they do, there is no Big Dipper to be seen, no North Star to be found, no guiding and directing point of light. No beacon. No ray of hope. And this is very hard. The longer the clouds persist, the harder it gets. Sometimes the mist is so thick, you cannot find your way out of it. So you have to believe. You have to remember where you saw the North Star last, and then you have to trust yourself, trust your own intuition, trust your ability to navigate, trust your own knowledge. You have to rely upon yourself.
Sometimes, for some people, there has never been a clear night filled with brilliant stars and brilliant possibilities—and a brilliant, guiding, beautiful hope. For some people, there has always only been clouds, and they have known nothing else. They have always done everything the same way, lived their life the same way, never tried anything else, never trusted themselves. And so they never knew there was another path.
You can tell them about the stars, but they won’t believe you. You can tell them of Ursa Major, that Great Bear in the sky, that constant light and strength, but they will scoff at you. You can tell them of the great men of yore who used the North Star to navigate, sail, and conquer the world, but they will laugh at you. They will tell you there are no points of light in the night sky, only the paltry points of light they hold in their own hands, a sort of glitter they covet and glut themselves upon.
They will warn you! Do not travel alone! Do not rely upon your own senses! Do not trust yourself! Do not look for a guide in the heavens! Stay here, they will say. Stay immobile. Sit where I tell you. Eat what I give you. Feel the comfort of all those around you who stay connected to one another in the thick mist. Do not wander, for you will get lost.
I walk away. The mist is confining, and I find I cannot breathe in its depths. I cannot think clearly. The mist masks the stars I know for certain are up in the heavens, and I must remove the mask to see them. I must remove the mask to think clearly again. I leave the comfort of the crowd, the warmth of the throng, the seeming strength of the numbers. To the edge, to the edge, to the edge I go. And then I jump . . .
And I am alone in the clear and cold and beautiful night, and high above me is the North Star, guiding me as it has always done. I am not lost after all, for I have my guide. I know where I am, and I am not afraid. I know which direction I am headed. I am confident in my abilities and my knowledge.
Sometimes I cook my meals on an open fire or a little propane stove. I collect the rainwater and filter and drink it because it tastes so good. I do things differently, not because I want to do things the “hard way” or the “old way,” but because doing things differently on purpose forces my mind to walk in another direction. It forces me to think differently, to calculate differently. It makes me realize there are other ways of doing things. It gives me a sort of security, and that security lets me know that I am not dependent on the crowd and the current trends for my existence.
Because I know where I’m going. I have the North Star above me, and He has never failed me. And I have the North Star within me. There is no mist to blind me, no mask to hide the world from me. I walk in the cold night alone, and I am not afraid.
