{"id":329,"date":"2010-08-04T03:46:19","date_gmt":"2010-08-04T08:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.martysparadox.com\/index.php"},"modified":"2014-03-24T01:24:30","modified_gmt":"2014-03-24T08:24:30","slug":"retreat","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.martysparadox.com\/index.php\/writing\/writing-1997\/retreat","title":{"rendered":"Retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5><em>By Martin Falatic<br \/>\nWritten 1997-03-14<br \/>\nRevised 1997-03-19<\/em><\/h5>\n<div class=\"hr\">\n<hr \/>\n<\/div>\n<pre>Thoughts scurry across the consciousness,\r\n     running high on hope, they twist and turn,\r\n          enriched by every passing moment.\r\nSurety in the face of impossible odds.\r\n\r\nThe heart fearlessly bounds ahead of the cautious mind,\r\n     like a child in a new, exciting place,\r\n          exploring limits beyond limits,\r\n          peering into the hazy windows of closed gateways,\r\n          striving to find something beyond itself, beyond reason,\r\n               the essence of hope unveiled.\r\nA finger of doubt grows from the unknowing,\r\n- the chaotic boundary between what is inferred and what is fact -\r\nit lingers, like the haze on a hot summer afternoon,\r\n     a distant early warning of storms yet to come.\r\n\r\nThe child-heart strays ever-deeper into adventurous speculation.\r\nCrude boundaries, the hallmarks of unheeded caution,\r\n     stand like barbed wire in the path of the jubilant wanderer.\r\nThe heart bounds effortlessly over each of these snares and traps,\r\n     following a vision that has become increasingly fantastic:\r\n          one part premonition, two parts knowing, three parts hope,\r\nThe vision endures; the journey continues.\r\n\r\nSome barriers are low and easily ignored,\r\n     but one is taller, more forbidding,\r\n          with sharper barbs to guard the frontier beyond it.\r\nCareful scrutiny gives way to careless ambition,\r\n     and the child-heart leaps as high as it can...\r\n\r\nA leap of faith...\r\nThe storm breaks...\r\nThe child-heart falls stunned and wounded to the ground.\r\n\r\nAlthough superficial, the cuts sting bitterly...\r\nIn sadness and confusion, the child-heart begins a hasty retreat,\r\n     back to the safety of the mind's watchful eye.\r\nOne cannot blame the barbs for teaching patience,\r\n     nor the child-heart for unfounded hopes:\r\n          these are the property of the living,\r\n          the lessons learned and built upon,\r\n          the trials that mold and shape who we are,\r\n          and who we will become.\r\nOne can only consider the retreat itself,\r\n     for it is an admission of doubt, an attempt to regroup,\r\n     a time for healing wounds and planning new strategy,\r\n     a time of decisions: to forge ahead... or to give up?\r\n\r\nFoolish is the one who, chastened by their limits,\r\nremains in retreat until the threat of change\r\n     and the hope of progress have long since passed.\r\nWise is the one who reaches out boldly yet again,\r\n     armed with deeper understanding and conviction,\r\n     ready to endure the rigors of following hopes and dreams\r\n     despite the unknown barriers yet to be reckoned with...\r\n\r\nSome time later, the child-heart faces the forbidding barrier again,\r\n     the wounds now healed, still remembered, now considered,\r\nAnd leaps...\r\nAnd continues on the path of discovery,\r\n     wherever it may lead.<\/pre>\n<div class=\"hr\">\n<hr \/>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Martin Falatic Written 1997-03-14 Revised 1997-03-19 Thoughts scurry across the consciousness, running high on hope, they twist and turn, enriched by every passing moment. Surety in the face of impossible odds. The heart fearlessly bounds ahead of the cautious mind, like a child in a new, exciting place, exploring limits beyond limits, peering into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":283,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-329","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martysparadox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martysparadox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martysparadox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martysparadox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martysparadox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.martysparadox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/329\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martysparadox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martysparadox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}