Long overdue

SOMEWHERE OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN, Nov. 15, 2015—This year has been tedious and stress filled. In addition to the sudden shock of being drafted into new duties at work, tragedy swarmed around us this year like a cloud of fruit flies dancing above a freshly cut pineapple. We suffered death and despair at every turn, it seemed, and while my fortunes at work had seemed to soar, my personal life was fraught with setbacks and disappointment on numerous levels. Most of all, I was left reeling by the death of my mother, despite the full expectation of her passing.

The view from the airplane window

Consequently, my adrenal gland spent most of the year pumping my body full of cortisol—the powerful and dangerous hormone released into the system during periods of extreme duress. Since most humans these days suffer no real dangers that would cause a person to fight or flee, modern men in the throes of a cortisol orgy simply balloon up like bratwurst over a hot flame, and I was no exception. I had grown fat and sluggish, my eyes had lost their shine and had become surrounded by dark bags, and I noticed that my hair had become dull and flat. And while Nutrisystem®, Maybelline, and Vidal Sassoon all promise cures for such things, it was not lost on me that each of these things was a sign—and a troubling sign to be sure.

Always travel with whimsy

Many people who become saturated with stress hormone fall prey to sickness, injury, or worse. It is the mind's way of taking the "victim" out of the game so to speak. Being a resilient person, I did not succumb. But in late August,  while looking at an impossible calendar of duties that would keep me more than heavily occupied for the foreseeable future, I had an epiphany: Either take some time off or drop dead. Even though I have a decent life insurance policy, and Caroline would fare okay in the wake of my demise, the thought of checking out before my reservation here on Earth had ended seemed like a cruel waste. I realized after my Mother's death that we only get one shot at this life, so we'd better make it a good one.

We started making plans for a restful vacation that would commence at the end of the stressful string of deliverables that loomed large on the calendar.

The preferred cure for negative thought

Today, sailing above the Pacific in a rickety metal flying machine, we were able to see the fruits of our labor and planning shaping up. At 30,000 feet, a person can really appreciate the wonder of the world. At this altitude, the curvature of the Earth is almost perceptible with the naked eye. The bright blue sky above and the deep-blue sea below is a testament to the wonderful anomaly that Planet Earth is in the cosmos. How we humans can continue to despoil and poison our host terrarium remains a marvel and a mystery to me. It brings me no joy to reiterate that there are far too many of us here, and that the vast majority of us are far too selfish to be good stewards of this world. Even though the sound of the surf below provides us with a metronome that honestly and unapologetically marks the passage of time, most of us feel as if we will be here forever, and that all of our actions during the past 100 years in particular can and will be forgiven without consequence or discomfort.

I, like many others, I'm sure, am beginning to suspect that such an assumption is probably untrue. Meanwhile, the mass media and a drumbeat of wishful thinking has done its best to convince us that electric powered vehicles, good intentions, and Carbon Offsets will certainly overpower the unsustainable system of rampant consumerism we have created for ourselves. And outside of a few sink holes, some weird weather, and the occasional manageable plague now and again, Mother Nature has done little to betray this canard. 

We arrived at a wonderful destination

Lest you think that I must be a real drag to vacation with, please remember that it takes much longer to write down such thoughts than it takes to actually think them. Thankfully for Caroline, most of this negativity was unspoken, drowned out by the drone of the aircraft, and even the unquiet moments were banished in roughly the same amount of time as it took to prepare a nice cocktail in the airplane as we streaked through the sky toward our tropical destination. They say no man is an island, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't visit one. And after spending hours in the air and leaving a giant hypocritical carbon footprint on this fragile ecosystem of ours, I was instantly astounded by the beauty and the heat of Kauai, Hawaii's "Island of Discovery." It seems like a fitting place to heal and ponder the events of the past year, and I intend to take full advantage—hopefully as "sustainably" as we can.

See you on down the road!