A Change in the Wind

The past six months I've come to realize that virtually everything is perspective. I'm not sure how to explain it, but something to the effect of "one man's hell is another man's heaven." I suppose attitude has something to do with it certainly, but some situations can either be great or terrible depending on your perspective and what you want out of life. Some of us are so wrapped up in this need for security that we lose sight of all the experiences we could be having when we're working to keep that security. And then others of us are so far the other way that we stop trying to plan for the future. There has to be a fine medium in there somewhere, but where and how do you grasp it?

I just started Voyaging Southward from the Strait of Magellan by Rockwell Kent, which is proving quite interesting. He includes this bit by Bayard Boyesen after the introduction, rather intriguing:

Over the Ultimate

Who asks when
We that have done with doing and the blood-red tides of men
    Shall hold fast
    Ourselves at last?
Who cares when?

We that have dived o'er the morning and the thither sides of night,
What delight?
    Should we have your traces,
    Times and places -
What delight?

Ye that are day-things,
    Reckoners of north and south,
       Of great things ruinous;
      What should ye know of us,
Us that have stars for our playthings,
    Yea, stars that browse on our mouth?

What life saith,
    Shall we care,
We that have juttied through death
    And despair?

We that have joked with the mountain gales
    And sent them rattling home,
We that have held the morning's sails
    O'er the foam?
    Yet laughing at sails and mornings, all things that are still or roam?

What life saith
    Of its strife,
    Shall we care?
We that have juttied through death
    And despair,
  Yea, and life!
      Shall we care?
      Of what shall we care?