By Frosty Wooldridge
July 24, 2023
While sitting next to a nearly exhausted campfire in upper Michigan on our Northern Tier coast-to-coast ride, I learned a lot from my companions Frank Cauthorn, Robert Case, Don Lindahl and Gerry Mulroy. Like all friends, each teaches a few lessons for a day, week or a lifetime. Each one of those thoughtful men brought stories, wisdom, music and their life-energy. They inspired me to write this vignette about life and its one-time ‘immortality’ on this planet for each one of us. I hope you too, on your bicycle travels, share your thoughts with all of us. It makes the world a more peaceful and happier place to live.
(Frosty Wooldridge, touring bike “Condor”, coast to coast across America.)
During your life journey, you may read different authors who share their insights with you. As a matter of fact, writers lay their guts on the line to aid, assist and support you on your own life path.
So often, you hear older people say they suffer from afflictions, lack of energy and the “gumption” to explore beyond their front room rocking chair or that ever-present Barker lounger.
One of the things I discovered as I traveled through my 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and 50’s—once you engage fully with life, you live an eternity with each event whether work or play, good times or otherwise. Your eternity equals your lifespan. It’s endless as long as you continue breathing and ambulating.
One of my favorite authors, John Muir, made a stunning announcement about living forever. He created a metaphor using a bear. He said, “Bears are made of the same dust as we, and breathe the same winds and drink the same waters. A bear’s days are warmed by the same sun, his dwellings are over-domed by the same blue sky, and his life turns and ebbs with the heart-pulsings like ours, and was poured from the same First Fountain. And weather he at last goes to our stingy heaven or not, he has terrestrial immorality. His life not long, not short, knows no beginning, no ending. To him life unstinted, unplanned, is above the accidents of time, and his years, markless and boundless, equal Eternity.”
Isn’t that really profound? Did it grab you? I realized by reading John Muir, that bears don’t know when they face death. They lack any understanding of mortality. Thus, they live their lives eternally happy with each day, with each season, and with each moment of their lives.
If you appreciate that concept, it means you, too, may choose living at your highest and best for the eternity of your life on this planet.
Notice the title of this vignette: ascending the spiraling staircase of your life. Your lifespan offers ups, downs, flats, sunny and stormy weather. It offers romance, friends, enemies, frustrations and sadness. More profoundly than the bear, you enjoy a choice of happiness. Incorporate that understanding because life challenges every single person on this planet. It doesn’t make any difference where he or she lives or what he or she does for a living. It doesn’t care whether a person enjoys riches or poverty. Life doesn’t care whether a person enjoys fame or anonymity.
One of the things you may learn along the way: paradise stands under your feet. That’s right. It’s here and it’s now. It’s what you do daily, incrementally to move your life toward happiness.
Let’s go back to two world famous artists—Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Frenchman Henri Matisse with modern art.
Both buoyed each other throughout their careers. They “pushed” each other as to creative endeavors. Matisse, nearly 20 years younger than Renoir, helped his friend into old age. Renoir suffered from arthritis, which crippled his hands.
At one point, Renoir barely held the brush. Matisse asked, “Pierre, my friend, why do you continue to paint when you are in so much pain?”
Renoir replied, “The pain passes, and when it does, it allows the beauty to emerge.”
We enjoy three levels of consciousness: sub-consciousness that runs us under our skulls and many times without our knowing it; unconsciousness when we do something without thinking and consciousness, where we choose our direction.
In order to live at your highest and best, you might incorporate Renoir’s legacy. Or, pick out one of your heroes or idols who touches your life-energy and inspires you. It could be Susan B. Anthony, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jane Goodall, Robert Redford, Nellie Bly, Henry David Thoreau, Jesus Christ or Ralph Waldo Emerson. It might be Robin Williams, Diane Sawyer, John Wayne or Meryl Streep. Whomever turns you on to vibrant living with their words or deeds, pursue your own spiraling staircase to heaven on Earth.
Some things you can do along the way:
—-Choose to live a cheerful life every day by reading positive authors. Choose positive friends who support you. Choose movies and plays that lift you toward your highest vibrational energy.
—-Choose tenderness and warmth with children, your mate or friends. Touch them with kind words, big hugs and smiling countenance.
—-Commune deeply with nature by walking into a woods, sitting by a pond or standing in a stream. Choose a pet to share your moments. Coffee with a girlfriend or a game of racquetball with your buddy.
In the end, you live every day of your life with a sense of eternity because you’re not thinking about anything else. That’s the best immortality you can imagine. And remember Muir’s wisdom:
“To him life unstinted, unplanned, is above the accidents of time, and his years, markless and boundless, equal Eternity.”
Frosty Wooldridge, six continent world bicycle traveler
© 2023 Frosty Wooldridge – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Frosty: frostyw@juno.com
