The Trip Was To Be An Odyssey

Straddling The Top Of The World, One Foot In China And The Other In Nepal, I Cleared The Ice From My Oxygen Mask, Hunched A Shoulder Against The Wind, And Stared Absently Down At The Vastness Of Tibet.

Almost Every Magazine Piece I've Ever Written, I Felt Like I Haven't Done It Justice, Like It Was Just A Gloss.

And If I Remain In The Dark About Our Purpose Here, And The Meaning Of Eternity, I Have Nevertheless Arrived At An Understanding Of A Few More Modest Truths: Most Of Us Fear Death. Most Of Us Yearn To Comprehend How We Got Here, And Why-- Which Is To Say, Most Of Us Ache To Know The Love Of Our Creator. And We Will No Doubt Feel That Ache, Most Of Us, For As Long As We Happen To Be Alive.

Sometimes My Need To Love Hurts-- Myself, My Family, My Cause. Is There A Cure? Of Course. But I Refuse. Refuse To Stop Loving, To Stop Caring. To Avoid Those Tears, That Pain...to Err On The Side Of Passion Is Human And Right And The Only Way I'll Live.

At Long Last He Was Unencumbered, Emancipated From The Stifling World Of His Parents And Peers, A World Of Abstraction And Security And Material Excess, A World In Which He Felt Grievously Cut Off From The Raw Throb Of Existence.