On my way back from dinner today, I found myself in a somewhat unusual position of driving along I-84 on my way home going directly into the sun. I had to put on my sunglasses, as the light was blinding, and only with the help of occasional overpasses was I able to see the cars in front of me. Of course, some of the drivers chose to drive at 45 miles per hour or so on the freeway, but I felt unsafe at that speed, so I resolved to drive at my normal speed and use whatever visual cues I could to make it a safer drive, for the couple of minutes I was in a dangerous place. At least when I am driving, my instinct is to drive as fast as I can safely manage, or if nothing is safe than as fast as I can manage without getting a speeding ticket that will get me out of danger as quickly as possible.

It is an odd experience to drive into the sun, to fly blind, as it were. I tend to be a person who by nature does not see particularly well, but to see the road and entire line of sight bathed in the light of a setting sun is a somewhat disorienting experience, even if only for a couple of minutes. I pondered, when the driving was safe again, how often in life we are flying into blinding light, unable to see anything except for what we are going towards, not knowing if we are safe or not, unsure of whether to slow down so that if we hit something we will be less damaged or if we should speed up to get out of danger quicker. Sometimes there are no safe answers, only one sort of risk or another, and one has to decide which sort of risk one prefers or can deal with the best, in the absence of a more pleasant option. Of course, one would prefer it another way, but one does not always have a lot of options.

As a teenager the band U2 had a hit single called “Staring At The Sun [1],” and it was a song that resonated deeply with me, given the fact that I have always been a person who was willing to pay a heavy price to follow dreams and to seek a better life than what I knew. I suppose in some way I have always been like the narrator of Jackson Browne’s song “Running On Empty,” running into the sun, but feeling like I am running behind. Time marches away from us far more relentlessly than we can ever chase it, and every vagabond knows that if all one does is run and never dig roots one never really gets anywhere, for all the change in locations, one merely follows the same shallow trails. To truly move ahead in life, one needs enough stability to dig deep, to create something that will last for generations. Sometimes only by standing still can one move forward, a difficult trick to do if one is set on running.

For as long as I have been alive I have never been particularly skilled with either darkness or direct sunlight. I am best in indirect light, which reveals the substance and the shadow, from an angle, where I can profit from the light without it being pointed straight in my sensitive eyes. We all have our own interesting way of looking at the world, our own situations where we are flying blind and have to somehow manage to stay on track when it is clear that we do not know what we are about. It can be scary to be in such situations, especially if we are used to living with the belief that we are the captain of our ship, the masters of our destiny. When that belief is forcibly turned into fiction, it can be frightening indeed, yet somehow we must live with the knowledge that precious little in our lives is truly under our control, even if we are responsible for responding to what happens thoughtfully and well. That is a burden enough for any of us to manage.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/staring-at-the-sun/