The Beginning Of The End – The Second Half Of My Life

I sat on the edge of a cliff—the jagged limestone rock bit into my thighs. I looked down the sheer drop of around 2500 feet into the jungle far below. Scary.I was in Sabah Borneo with a World Wildlife Fund expedition in the Maliau Basin.Sitting on that cliff’s edge, I pondered what would happen if I slipped off into the jungle far below. Well, I would have simply vanished, never to be seen again. Compared to natures magnificence, how small I was, we are. How fragile is human life? As I contemplated the inspiring beauty before me questions about the meaning of life surfaced. How significant am I? How significant are you?

Lifting my gaze, I took in the scene before me. It was breathtaking, nothing short of magnificent.

Hundreds of square kilometres of unexplored and untouched wilderness stretched out to the horizon. The forest below was teaming with life. I could make out the animal calls as they floated up to me—the gibbons, macaws, and orangutang, to name just three. 

Nature’s symphony.

My focus had started with discomfort caused by the jagged limestone cliff face before shifting to the trees so far below  and then the panorama of nature’s overwhelming beauty.Compared to the vastness of nature I felt small and insignificant.

But then I wondered, are we humans really insignificant? Am I? Do the lives of my wife, children, and grandchildren have no meaning?I don’t think so.And so, with those questions foremost in my mind, I started the descent back to camp and reality and the second part of my life journey. Alan Cox