A Star Is a Compass Too, But It Is Not a Shark

My wife asked if I was going to write a Christmas ‘thing’ –like real soon!

I reminded her that I had already written a seasonal offering and probably was as much a holiday ‘thing’ as I was going be able to concoct.

When you have been in love with the same person for such a looong time, verbal communications is always a subset of visual expressions. Her reaction without a word conveyed, “Maybe you could write something that might make people feel happy for a change... it’s Christmas!”

She knows I’m a stubborn guy, and she also knows that her suggestions can often melt any cold obstinacy; not because her will is stronger but because she is usually right!

I don’t know about imparting any ‘happiness thing’-it just ain’t my style. But I will give some‘thing’ a whirl… so I can get back to my other stuff where I am more at comfort.

I always happen to think every year begins and ends on Christmas Day. It’s like you have an annual contract on that date and just before the holidays you get a contract extension for one more year.

If you have ever been under contract you understand the gyrations of thoughts and emotions that contract signings can bring. The range swings from I am one of the most important persons under contract to, why do they even need me around here?-both, and all inbetween, are valid. In the end, when the new contract is offered, you feel special, inspired to greatness for a period of time that seems too long away to even contemplate its nearness.

Christmas is like that for me. For some reason I always get the gift of another year. Do I deserve it? I guess I rationalize well enough to always answer to the affirmative-so far. But each year it doesn’t get any easier. I am pretty certain everybody does something similar; if not on Christmas perhaps a birthday, another holiday or some other milestone anniversary.

Such contemplations are not unlike any navigational process. If you’re going somewhere, you need directions. And you also need some device to tell when you are lost.

Nowadays many people have a GPS that navigates their journey for them. I am resisting such technical intrusions, frankly because I love to get lost. I have even made an art of getting lost. Every GPS-er has some story where the little GPS box gets it wrong and the trip ends up likewise. After the next upgrade the issue is resolved-the technology recalibrates-until the next instance. Everybody needs to check their compass and recalibrate- if not once a year, then when?

Christmas time for me is when I recalibrate my compass; to a star, a goal, a project, a whim- we all do it. Is it arrogance or ignorance that assumes we will even be making another journey in the year to come? The old survival instinct prevails, we are worthy, and we embark.

What’s interesting is how we measure worthiness. If we are using some kind of navigation analogy, to what kind of compass… oriented to what basis of direction? It would be too easy to get on the bandwagon about the monetary measurements; implying there is more to life than just money. I will not be climbing on that bus.

There is an inherent assumption for all cultures to subscribe to the idea of Progressive Intelligence; which means that every generation assumes it is smarter than the last. If you used such a formula you could deduce that only a few hundred years ago all humans were pretty stupid; to which any progressive intelligent person should scoff at.

We are the new generation, a culture of knowledge and data. But not necessarily one of experience and wisdom-there is a difference.

Many thousands of years ago the native Indians routinely traveled from what is now the southeastern United States to Caribbean islands like Cuba- for trade it is assumed.

Now I have been out in the Caribbean- in a big boat. It is scary enough in the daytime, but I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in a twenty-or-so-foot carved out tree traveling in the ink, black, shark infested waters of night. It gets pretty rough several miles off shore and what little landmarks for a short time in the journey are usually obscured by the large swells. It is impossible to row a canoe such a distance without traveling some part of the journey during the night. But, the night is when they most wanted to travel, because in the daytime, without any land bearings, they could only sail in a general direction using the sun. For specific guidance they needed the night; because they needed the stars. Any native worth his weight in shells knew how to read the stars- can we?

These natives knew how to read the stars but they also knew how to compensate for the constant calibrations that the year brought. Orion in June is not where Orion is in January. There are no constants in navigation, only fixed variables ever changing. Perhaps each of our personal journeys could learn something from our ignorant ancestors, even without GPS.

Something we each can think about if this is the time of year when plotting our next, new year’s course.

…So you have some insight into what kind of mind starts out writing some ‘thing’ happy about Christmas and end up telling a story about contracts and shark infested waters.

Perhaps that’s my Christmas gift to others.

By demonstrating my strange, meandering, floundering attempt to be creative, it might inspire many to compensate with their own creative, flowing, un-floundering, un-eccentric masterpiece…

(deck whistle toots) “This is the Captain. Set your new course on to the second star to the right…full steam ahead!” (ship’s whistle blows with other extraneous, busy nautical sounds) …as the magic begins.