There is power in distance. Our trials provide perspective, but distances provide the views that urge and inspire us. When it seems that we have reached our destination, we may rest for a short while; but we eventually will press onward. Our very nature compels continuance. There is rest neither for the weary nor for the strong, because resting is not in our nature. We sleep only to wake and continue our trek to the destination that none of us have reached.
Thus, the power of distance is what yields us to our inner traveler. When confronted with distance, we either decline into our complacency or—in that crux of fate—we recognize that what is lacking is not with us, but is out there, in some other place. Most of us find familiarity in the idea of 'home'. What is home but an ultimate destination? Destinations change with perspective, and perspective changes with time.
The horizon changes with every footstep, every heartbeat. The horizon calls to us, yet it is hauntingly unreachable. Why, then, do we set out in endless journeys? Why do we pursue a destination that can never be reached?
We strive to find our destination because we know that what we do not have is somewhere far off, far beyond us. We don't have it now, and we may never get it, but we certainly will not have it if we remain where we are. The horizon, meanwhile, is tantalizingly close. It is in our line of sight. Our efforts to reach it may never end; it will never let us forget what it is that we do not have.
This is the close horizon. This is the destination that all of us either seek to find, or seek to forget about, whether we know it or not. Once we realize that home is not a fixed position, we will be homebound. Until then, we are strangers in a strange land.
That is the other power of distance. It provides direction. We measure the distances that lie before us into identifiable form: roads, buildings, communities, counties, nations, continents. We box in our perspectives and curtail our desires. All the while we fail to recognize that our contrived 'distances' have no power compared to the power of direction. We walk and run and cycle and drive down endless highways to endless destinations that aren't really our destination but provide temporary satisfaction. Though we tangibly move, we are subconsciously stuck. So long as we forget our real destination, and the direction it takes us, we aren't going anywhere.
Look for the horizon. Find the need that you have for the things you do not have, and then go and find them. Run home. Run, run home. Keep running. Keep running. Never stand still again.
