Reflection 443

Welcome!

I believe you'll find it in the world

Often one flies just for the excitement of speed and power, but that's nothing. Any fool of a passenger gets it -- it's little more than a physical thrill. I want to fly for the sake of the flash of seeing that comes now and then -- almost as if one died bodily, and escaped from oneself, and saw out on the other side. But I can't tell you what it is I see. I can't even remember it myself. It will be the same with you. Some day the kind of exaltation you told me of, that comes to you after days and days of thought, will suddenly become more than it has ever been before -- and you will see. Then you'll come back, just as I come back to earth, and you won't be able to tell what you've seen -- or remember it. But the thing you can't describe and can't remember will be the whole of life to you. Sometimes you'll call it God, and sometimes you'll feel that it's nothingness, and that you've given up your life to nothingness. And in what way you'll reach it, I don't know. Maybe through solitude. I doubt it. I believe you'll find what you're looking for in the world, not in withdrawing from it.  Charles Morgan, (A pilot speaking to a scholar.) "The Fountain"