I’ve put in about 7.2 miles according to my speedometer. Riding along a beautiful stretch of Herring Run started me to thinking about what a contradiction that this slice of nature is and how it serves as a metaphor for people and life in general.
The thoughts racing through my head ultimately became too much to bear, so I pressed on the brakes, came to stop and set my bike against the bench to face down the ideas competing for attention in my mind.
Herring Run is a beautiful slice of nature in the middle of Northeast Baltimore, but as with anything especially people, looks can be deceiving.
Contact with the water is not recommended, it is done at your risk. In a perfect world people would come equipped with the same sign that is posted at this area of the stream.
When the expectations that we have in people is shattered, we often react as if we are surprised, as if they have let us down or put us at a disadvantage.
But if we read or remembered what the sign said: “At your own risk” we would realize that we are solely responsible for own our happiness…
Accepting people for who they are, rather who we would like them to be is naive at best.
Herring Run is like a lot of people that you and I know. I would like the serenity of the park and the stream not to be defiled with the host of plastic bags, aluminum cans, beer bottles and the like, but I realize that I have to meet Herring Run where she is at, not where I want her to be.
Focusing on what is wrong with people, not unlike my soliloquy about Herring Run, will take away from the beauty that we might miss otherwise.
Shun P. Writes... dot com 