We are in a monumental time of transformation. We can be forced to change, as the pandemic has made us, or we can be moved to change, through deliberate and inspired action. This moment is more than a bell toll—it is a lightning bolt, an awakening crack in our consciousness.
Often, enlightenment requires a catalyst. Change is born of tragedy. The year 2020, with such a symbolic number, is throwing the shades up on humanity, showing us how connected we are and also how destructive we can be. As if we couldn’t see it before, the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement have awakened us to our own power. Individually, we have an opportunity to help the whole; our personal actions have consequences for the collective better, or for the worse. We are the sum total of how we treat our bodies—wouldn’t the same logic hold true of how we treat each other?
Transformation is not an abstract experience; it requires conscious effort. To think that a problem is too big to dismantle is like quitting the game before making the first move. Positive change requires inward focus and our recognition that we can do so much more. At this publication, we have an urgent imperative: to ever more diligently and directly tell the diverse stories of our community.
While this edition is largely about travel, about places we’ve been and where we’d like to go, it is, at heart, about experiences that have transformed us, moments both beautiful and challenging that have made lifelong impressions—shifting our direction, our minds, awakening us to a new way. It’s about the freedom of movement, and how movement can change us for the better.
There is no time like the present, like the power of this moment. Life boils down to minutes, to seconds, to our last breaths. While we can, let’s please take care. Collective health. Equal opportunity. Positive, lasting change. It begins with individual action.
Blair Knobel
Editor-in-Chief
Twitter / Instagram: @LBKNOBEL
Photograph by Blair Knobel
