New World

That was what they called the Americas. It wasn’t really new. It was as old as Europe and had been inhabited for as long. Technically, Columbus didn’t discover anything. America was inhabited ages before his great grandfather was born. He just brought the attention of the world to America. It was new to the Europeans, not to the Native Americans who had lived there all their lives. And so it was that the New World was discovered. It was fresh, fertile and larger than little Mother Europe.
As necessary as it is that we leave our comfort zones and go on a spree of exploration, we need to understand that our greatest treasures are within and around us. The early Americans did not consider their land as valuable as the Europeans found them. They were content to live there that way. They walked the forests of California not knowing they were walking on gold mines. Many would have made their camps on those gold mines. Imagine how man gold mines you’ve made your bed on then walked away from the next morning. A Jewish patriarch had a similar experience. He woke up and told himself that he had slept at the very door of heaven and didn’t know it.
The new world is not a place. It is a mindset. While place is important, mindset is much more important. If it was about the place my country would be one of the most beautiful countries in the world. The mind rules the place. And there is no form of life apart from democracy. Democracy means that the will of the majority of the people is done. That is the form of life everywhere in the world, even in countries that claim to have a socialist, communist or monarchical government. Every place is a reflection of the dominant mindset of the majority of its people. If you want to change the place, please change your mind.
The new world is a mindset that sees and embraces opportunities unique to it. The world is a macrocosm of worlds. It’s big enough for the microcosms that are you and I. Live and let live. The onus is on you to find your new world. Don’t start with a place. Start with a dream. Dream of oceans and the shortest path you’ll take through them walking on feet. Dream of building space stations in the middle of the Sun. Dream of making ice creams in Pluto. The ice there is free and available. Dream of vacations in Atlantis (Yes, it is a real place). Dream of skyscrapers on Everest’s peak. That is the new world.
The new world is not discovering something new. It is letting something find you. It is answering the caller within. The end does not justify the means. The means is an end in itself. Let your journey therefore speak to you in soothing harmonies. Let it sing the secret words of your native tongue. Let those words lead you on, spell-bound to that clearing you see ever so often with your better eye. Symphony is the dream. Magic is the word.
The new world is faith. Faith is simple. It is putting one leg ahead of the other confident the ground under you will hold. Faith is closing your eyes at night because you trust in the flight that will move you to the planet of talking rivers and dancing mountains. Faith is waking up every day, getting up, going out.