Fishing is a wholesome, healthy, and peaceful pastime. Fly Fishing is like regular fishing, but it rewinds time a little bit. It’s like using yesterday’s technology today. When you fly fish you use little manmade flies, which are basically made the same way that they were a century ago. The casting techniques, although improved and refined over the years are still the same. The point is the same and the end results are the same; hopefully including fish on a stringer. My family enjoys fly fishing. One reason is its connection to the past while another is its ability to slow life down. If you hurry your action when fly fishing, it causes the line that you’re casting to load up and to become tangled in the air. A slow, rhythmic, back and forth action causes the line to flow gracefully through the air. First it unfolds behind you, forming an almost “s” shaped loop. This loop must be allowed to form if the forward cast is to be successful. One must wait patiently and pause at the end of the back stroke, before beginning the forward motion. For these brief seconds, time appears to stand still. There is a connection between the past and the present that is somehow made in that loop, one that has been made thousands of times before, over a period of many years, on virtually every continent on this earth.
Too often, the idea of new technology, scientific advancements and modernization displace the concept of carrying on a tried and true method. I wonder if we are losing track of what’s important in the name of what can be achieved. So that there’s no misunderstanding, I believe that achieving is the destiny of humanity, but we must never loose track of the needs of humanity along our road of achievements. We must never compromise humanity for achievements, which are pursued in the name of humanity. The Nazi Regime, for example, compromised humanity to achieve its goals, developing hatred and biases that resulted in an evil too revolting to think about. We can see in hindsight that what was lost in that awful moment was the patience to wait for a better plan to take form. Instead, a horrible plan was devised in a moment, to serve the selfishness of that moment.
A desire to achieve something, even something which is done in the name of humanity, which disregards the needs of humanity, doesn’t serve humanity. We have an opportunity to become a link between the past and the present, which connects the two. My Dad taught me to fish. I taught my children how to fish. My children could have read a pamphlet or book or rented a video and learned how to fish, but the human connection to the past would not be there. I cannot fish without thinking of my Dad. I wouldn’t want to. It connects me to his memory and a memory of a simpler time. I am suddenly transported to a place where all that is important is the moment, a moment where I can appreciate the treasure that is life and family and the wonders of humanity, as it continues on to meet its destiny. This is no longer simply about fishing; it is about a human connection, which was used to connect three generations, my Dad, myself and my children.
We have a responsibility to teach a generation the value of humanity. Technology is a marvelous thing, but it doesn’t possess humanity. It would not serve the next generation to leave them alone to figure out for themselves from a book on technology, what to do and where to go with all of this technology. Let’s leave them instead with a human connection to the past so that they are empowered to build a future that is human friendly. Blessings!

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