Project Vision 21

As Antonio Machado  says in his well-known poem, "Wayfarer, there is no way, / the path is made by walking," emphasizing that " Wayfarer, there is no way, / only wake-trails in the sea." But there is no doubt that some travelers intentionally undo the path they’ve walked so that no one else can follow.

Recently, on Mount Shavano in southern Colorado, at an elevation of just over 4,300 meters, a group of 15 coworkers reached the summit, but only 14 descended, erasing the trail markers as they went down. Without those markers, the abandoned man could not find the path and was forced to spend a night outdoors, enduring low temperatures and strong winds. He was located by his cell phone, rescued the next day, and needed medical attention.

Paradoxically, the climb was intended to strengthen relationships among the group members. Yet, apparently, no one thought that by erasing the trail, they were endangering the health and perhaps the life of another person. Or perhaps they did think about it.

Machado’s poem seems to suggest that there is no predetermined path to follow and that the path unfolds in each moment of the unrepeatable process of living. One could even interpret it as an invitation to reject pre-established norms and ideologies and to take responsibility for our own lives, but not in a selfish or narcissistic way.

On the contrary, in this postmodern, metamodern, anthropocenic world—or however you choose to label it—marked by constant and cataclysmic changes, where we build our identity based on separating ourselves from others and from the universe, we become so vulnerably self-protective that we intentionally erase paths and close doors for others.

Building paths and leaving trails in the sea is an act of openness to new possibilities, of living in rhythm with life itself, in a perpetual act of co-creation that renews our own identity and reconnects us with others, with the universe, and with ourselves within a new horizon of existence for which we are unprepared and for which no preparation is possible.

At the same time, we must be grateful to those travelers who open new paths and leave them open for others to find their own ways, like the recent spacewalk by the Polaris Dawn mission crew, the first spacewalk conducted by a private company.

In this case, they are trails in space that forge a new future, inviting a journey of discovery and self-discovery by going beyond the well-trodden paths in our search for deeper wisdom and meaning.

This invitation is not new. Across time and cultures, the idea of the "path" (way) has been a central metaphor for human experience, whether it is seen as a spiritual journey, a philosophical reflection on existence, or an existential challenge. Machado’s poem is a "meeting point" of ancestral paths, including Heraclitus' hodós, the Tao, and the well-known teaching, "I am the way."

While many destroy paths, others actively participate in a dynamic pilgrimage along the path (way) of life.