Driving through the desert this evening, we pulled off at an exit so that everyone could use the restroom, and while we were at the gas station I remembered being in that exact spot with a bunch of my friends over 30 years ago. My younger self had convinced my friends to take our jeeps and trucks out into the desert north of the 15 freeway. This was an area of the world rarely explored, with only rough roads and old stream beds. We found a place to camp that night, and when we woke in the morning we decided to take our caravan out farther into the landscape. We did not follow a road of any sort. We just followed the natural contours and what seemed like a dry stream that had formed from winter rains from the previous year.
By happenstance we came across a dry lake bed that seemed to stretch for miles. Now that I have Google Maps, I can find that place, and it is one of many unmarked flat areas in this part of the desert. When we hit this patch with our jeeps, it was magical. The bed was completely flat with a thin blanket of sand that would kick up behind our tires as we sped along. We felt like we were in the movie Tron, with these large dust trails flying up behind us. At one point we thought we saw a mirage coming, but in reality there was a thin film of water on the surface. When we hit it, our jeeps started spinning along the glassy surface. We glided for what seemed like miles in a completely friction-free environment. We could barely stand on the surface, it was so slippery. We spent the rest of the afternoon slowly pushing our vehicles off the surface, as the tires could gain no purchase.
This was an incredible experience, and we all remember it fondly. It was truly a moment that none of us will forget. Years later, I tried to replicate this experience. However, I was unable to do so. The conditions were not right. The lake bed had too many rough spots, and some sage had grown in various places. The ground was cracked and rough and full of small stones. So the moment was not to happen again, and that one experience was to be forever logged into the lore of my young adult escapades. What is it about these magical moments in life that, once you discover them, you will never be able to repeat them? I think I have at least five of these types of moments where the conditions and the people I was with were just perfect to produce a situation that was seemingly designed to be unforgettable but never repeated.
Many years later, I had a similar experience but in a remarkable fashion. I had created a future vision of something that I would do when I achieved a goal. I thought about what it would look like, where I would be, who I would be with, and what I would feel like. I created a vision of a moment that would occur and relived it in my mind repeatedly until the future moment felt like a memory. Then, a year later, when the goal was achieved, the moment occurred with striking similarity to what I had created in my mind. This led to my conclusion that it is entirely possible to create these magical moments in life on purpose. You just have to spend a great deal of time focusing on the path to get there. I know this sounds like the new age mystical meditation stuff that is popular these days, but I have experienced this first hand. There is indeed power in focusing on mission and purpose with so much dedication and intensity that you can will it into being. There is some truth to the idea that your future vision of yourself can become a memory.
