Song Choice:- An instrumental choice today from the 1972 Genesis album 'Foxtrot'. At only 1.39 minutes long The track took inspiration from the Prelude of Suite No. 1 in G major, for cello by Bach and is played as a solo by guitarist Steve Hackett. Take a listen here and you'll understand why I like it so much.
The Horizon is in fact a very interesting thing - I always thought it was where the sky meets the sea, which I thought was about 10 miles. If you read about the Horizon on Wiki, I'm about right. It says - To compute the greatest distance at which an observer can see the top of an object above the horizon, compute the distance to the horizon for a hypothetical observer on top of that object, and add it to the real observer's distance to the horizon. For example, for an observer with a height of 1.70 m standing on the ground, the horizon is 4.65 km away. For a tower with a height of 100 m, the horizon distance is 35.7 km. Thus an observer on a beach can see the top of the tower as long as it is not more than 40.35 km away. Conversely, if an observer on a boat (h = 1.7 m) can just see the tops of trees on a nearby shore (h = 10 m), the trees are probably about 16 km away.
And that was the easy bit to understand as after that, you'll need to be a quantum physicist to understand the formulae. Being able to see 209 miles from the top of Everest is a cool fact though.
Anyway, I'm interested more in my own horizons right now and it's interesting how they've changed and interesting how often I seem to change them nowadays. Before I was ill maybe I was stuck looking at the same piece of sea and sky moving ever onwards and hence never getting any closer than the 10 mile limit.
What I have discovered is that moving five miles closer to the horizon doesn't mean it gets five miles closer. It's still 10 miles away! It means though that you've covered five miles and that's the bit we forget to celebrate.
It's an analogy I've used time and time again with my clients, yet it's one I've definitely overlooked in the past myself. You see it's so hard not to get drawn into the journey, rather than the distance we've travelled towards the 'offing' (that's the correct term for the point where Sky meets Sea, you learn something everyday eh?).
OK, some horizon's are longer and it's also alright to have more than one. I have a major update on mine this weekend, as I will have a few hours of home leave to reduce the shock of being discharged from hospital, hopefully in a few weeks. It's a scary thought, as I'm very much into the rhythm of hospital life after being in it for so many months. Then again, having a new focal point will be most refreshing so I'm going to enjoy this part of my journey.
How about you? Where' are you heading? 10 miles away? Or do you need to reassess it?
More tomorrow...
Rory Coleman
976 Marathons - 241 Ultras - 9 Guinness World Records - 13 Marathon des Sables - 8254 Days' Sober
www.RoryColeman.co.uk
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