“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” This famous proverb from the legendary philosopher Lao Tzu has survived and gained strength since the sixth century B.C. It can be applied to massive undertakings, such as President John F. Kennedy's promise that we would walk on the moon (a promise he would not live to see), or, very literally, to any particular person on earth who decides to get married, have a child, start a new business, or fight an addiction.
What these words of wisdom do not include is a guarantee of reaching that thousand mile destination. They also neglect to include the days, months, or years of thinking, fearing, and preparing that it takes to get to that single step, knowing the outcome is far from certain. History does not tend to document and report the failures, unless they are significant. The bigger the dream, the better chance of catastrophic failure, and the better chance of winding up as a cautionary tale for future generations.
Christopher Columbus is much maligned in our present times, and with much validity (many thanks to author Howard Zinn, one of the first to call out Columbus’s atrocities). But, regardless of what he did when he got to the misnamed “New World”, the man was willing to chance a journey that no known person (to his knowledge) had ever successfully navigated. He wasn’t afraid of falling off the face of the earth, since evidence of a spherical earth harkens back to the times of Lao Tzu. Still, this was a time period devoid of much scientific information, and there were two continents unknown to him and all other Europeans. Hell, Columbus wasn’t even aware that he had been beaten by the Vikings, who reached modern day Canada, by 500 years in the trans-Atlantic race. What monsters were out there waiting for him? Was God on his side? After many calculations (some faulty, like underestimating the circumference of the earth) and money-raising attempts, he finally launched anyway.
Even in a more present time where math and science is king, that single step is still a large, possibly life-taking gamble. Neil Armstrong may have taken that “one small step for man”, but how many other steps (including deaths) would it take to reach that point? The Wright brothers certainly got the ball rolling in the right direction, and death was an inevitable consequence in the pursuit of air superiority. For example, when Russians taunted us with Sputnik, the first man made satellite, we said “Game on!” But, three astronauts would be burned to death without ever leaving the ground. Yet, now the moon is conquered territory, and back on our geo-political map, as the Chinese are now exploring the dark side of the moon almost 50 years after Pink Floyd did. Apparently Mars is our next horizon.
There are millions, maybe billions, of other paths that need that first step. I hope that in my lifetime we see quantum physics and nanotechnology, things that I hope to talk about in future discussions, make as great an impact, or greater, on human civilization. There are some historians who now believe that Lao Tzu is just a legend and not an historical person. Does it matter? Daoism exists just the same because of him. For better or worse we keep moving forward.
I have been a high school social studies teacher for nearly thirty years, and I’ve been following my own small-world path. Now, with this post, I’m hopefully starting a new one. I love discussions about life, history, politics, and how they all interact with each other. Decades of classroom and department discussions, reading books by incredible historians, and keeping up with current events has allowed me to get into the weeds of history and make connections to present-day that some don’t get a chance to see. I’m looking to share these with anyone, young or not as young, who would like to read them. This may end very quickly after one step, or it may last a thousand miles, but I can at least say, at age 52, that I tried, and I’m good with that. Here’s to the future, no matter how long it lasts.
Thanks for reading.
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