You Can't Get There From Here

Butch Hancock: Already Gone

FIVE FROM THE ROYAL ARCH ROUTE

We climbed this hill.
Each step up
we could see farther,
so of course
we kept going.
Now we’re at the top.
Science has been
at the top
for a few centuries now.
And we look out
across the plain
and we see
this other tribe
dancing around
above the clouds,
even higher than we are.
Maybe it’s a mirage,
maybe it’s a trick.
Or maybe they just climbed
a higher peak we can’t see
because the clouds are blocking the view.
So we head off to find out--but every step takes us downhill. No matter what direction we head, we can’t move off our peak without losing our vantage point. So we climb back up again. We’re trapped on a local maximum. But what if there is a higher peak out there, way across the plain? The only way to get there is to bite the bullet, come down off our foothill and trudge along the riverbed until we finally start going uphill again. And it’s only then you realize: Hey, this mountain reaches way higher than that foothill we were on before, and we can see so much better from up here. But you can’t get there unless you leave behind all the tools that made you so successful in the first place. You have to take that first step downhill.
--Peter Watts
Echopraxia