Discovery

At the start of Sunday afternoon’s walk in my familiar South Chagrin Metropark, I obeyed a notion to take a trail I had never taken before. It was by no means a brave decision. I know that park; I am well-oriented to it; it isn’t far to a paved road from anywhere in it .

Still, I felt a certain thrill, a moment of anticipation: what would I experience on that unfamiliar route to some assured destination?

The trail was slightly obscured by the season’s leaves, and required a muddy detour around a fallen tree. After just ten minutes or so I came to a picnic pavilion I knew. A man was addressing a large gathering inside. He seemed to be giving instructions.

From there I took off on another new-to-me trail. It wasn’t difficult, and I enjoyed what I saw and smelled and touched. I loved the new experience.

When I reached a paved path, I saw small groups of walkers huddled around sheets of instructions. From one group I overheard a discussion of whether they would next try to find “number 45” or “number 36.” Another group was debating how to get to the bridge whose boards they were to count. I am sure they were on a scavenger hunt that had set out from that pavilion. Like me, they were no doubt walking new trails and seeing new things.

True explorers push into wildernesses whose only trails may be those of animals. They also strike out through dense green undergrowth or across trackless deserts or snow fields. The earliest humans probably explored such places with little sense of where they fit in to any bigger picture. Later, compasses and other navigation gear told them their direction, if not their destination.

Now we rarely explore anything without being quite sure how we will get there and where we will end up. Few of us ever explore what’s totally unknown, maybe because there’s precious little that’s totally unknown available to us.

So we follow paths new to us, but which others have laid out, enjoying the path we are on until we come to what we know. Or we follow directions toward specific outcomes and, focused on our goals, pay little attention to the path itself.

Do any of us dare dream of being first to blaze a new trail to a wholly new destination? Probably not.

Still, wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able both to appreciate our own journey and to anticipate its end? Wouldn’t it be fulfilling to absorb completely both our progress toward and our discovery of the purpose life holds for us?