The ocean is somewhere ahead of you. You can’t quite see it yet. But you can hear it. A slow, distant rhythm. Water meeting stone. Again. And again. And again. You’re standing at the beginning of a narrow path overlooking the coast. Behind you, there’s nothing you need to deal with right now. No notifications. No unfinished jobs. No list of things waiting for you. Just this path. So... let’s see where it goes. The air is cool. Not cold. Just enough to wake you up a little as you begin walking. The ground beneath your feet is firm, scattered with smooth stones and patches of grass bent gently by the sea breeze. Ahead, the path disappears into a bank of soft white fog. You keep walking. There’s no hurry. Every few steps, the sound of the ocean grows clearer. Then... through the mist... a light appears. Once. Then disappears. A few seconds later... there it is again. A lighthouse. Far out on the headland. Its beam slowly sweeping across the sea. You follow it. The path winds downward now, running along the edge of the cliffs. Far below, waves roll toward the shore. Huge from a distance... but somehow peaceful. You stop beside an old wooden railing. There are seabirds drifting on the wind without even moving their wings. For a moment, you watch them. No effort. No destination. Just floating wherever the air carries them. Not a bad idea, really. You continue. The fog begins to thin. The lighthouse becomes clearer. Weathered stone. A small keeper’s cottage. A warm yellow light glowing from one window. And beside the door... a chair. As though someone knew you were coming. You sit. From here, you can see the whole coastline. The cliffs stretching away in both directions. The ocean reaching so far into the distance that there is no obvious place where it ends. The lighthouse beam passes slowly overhead. Once. Twice. And for the first time today, perhaps... there is absolutely nowhere else you need to be. You stay for a while. Listening. Breathing. Watching the ocean move. Eventually, the light sweeps across the water again... and this time you notice something. Far out at sea. Another tiny light. Maybe a ship. Maybe another lighthouse. Maybe somewhere we’ll visit another day. For now, this one is yours. And before we leave... you. Yeah. You. Thanks for coming along. There are millions of pages you could have opened. Thousands of things demanding your attention. But somehow... you ended up here. At a lighthouse at the edge of an imaginary ocean. I think that was a pretty good choice. Stay as long as you like. And when you’re ready... the path will still be here.
