Moving to Tumblr

After some thought and consideration, I have decided to move my blog over to the Tumblr platform. No further posts will be made here. Check out my new site at:

http://clifhirtle.tumblr.com

Novel

I was chatting with a good friend today and it occurred to me that just 1 year ago I did not even know this wonderful, thoughtful friend of mine who has become such a positive force for change in my community.

How could I have possibly predicted just 1 year ago how I would meet this individual who would become such an inspiring, thoughtful colleague over the past 6-9 months? How could I have possibly known how so much might change over the course of just a scant 12 months (a near complete reversal of finance and health and emotion and perspective)? How could I have foreseen how close I would now be to moving beyond these destitute walls, to the near-same place I lived long ago, with newer, wiser eyes showing me just how much I might have missed the last time around?

But it is more than that really.

For how mistaken can we sometimes be in assuming we know just what lies ahead? How foolish to propose we have already experienced the best of this life, merely from this tiny, singular place we are now? How arrogant to settle upon the conclusion that this life is anything less than a wonderful work-in-progress, this ultimate potentiality?

I have heard the author Jack Canfield frequently say that life is like driving car across country in total darkness. You can only see as far as your headlights at any given time, but so long as you have a big picture, a map of where you want to go, you will eventually make it to your destination, even if you can only see as far as your headlights are shining right now.

I always liked that analogy, even if I have not always trusted in it at different points in my life. For the passions I feel, the strengths I wield, the perspectives I draw upon I know never really left me, I simply stopped listening to their voices long just enough to forget how far they got me already... and how far they have to carry me still.

Life a novel: pages penned, ink fresh, a masterpiece in progress.

What are you going to write next?