Why Fish If No One Sees? Why Speak If No One Hears?

Emily Dickinson would observe Robins singing and ask, “Wherefore sing if no one hears?” She concludes that the Robins sing for the sheer joy of singing even if no one listens. She adds the interesting possibility that angels might applaud the Robin’s unheard song.

“Wherefore sing if no one hears. How do I know but angels, once themselves, as patient, listened and applauded her unnoticed hymn?”

Why Fish if no one sees? Why do anything in life if no one observes or listens? Why write, paint or speak if no one will see or hear and validate us? Can I still catch a large beautiful trout and not take a picture of it and post it on the internet?

We live in an age where we can delude ourselves that many are listening to us simply because we post our fishing accomplishments and our commentaries on the internet. We assume, “Everyone will see and hear.”  If not everyone, then at least someone; anyone. We seem to need and want this validation.  

Interesting that Emily Dickinson wrote about the Robin’s unheard song when she was deeply aware of her own writing being unheard.  Yet, she did not desire to be published. She preferred her solitary voice without affirmation from others.

I realize I am much too vain to claim to be like Emily. Yet, she sets an ideal that I can strive to emulate even if I fall short. Most often,  I tend to write and post pictures of fish thinking others might hear my unheard song and see the fish I have caught. I try to challenge myself. Is that why I write or fish?  To be heard? To be seen?

I remember in the innocence of childhood that alone, I would walk a pond or a river. I would spot a fish. I would use all the skill I could muster up to make a very difficult cast to get the fish to take the fly. The fish would explode out of the water spraying droplets in the stillness. I stood pleased and rewarded within.

 I was alone. No one heard or saw. There were no pictures to post. It was for the sheer joy of fishing and casting a fly.

Perhaps, now, unseen and unheard,  I can still walk alone up into the upper reaches of a canyon and in that quiet enchanting moment, while no one is watching, I can make a cast, using skill that allows me to hold a magnificent fish in my trembling hands. I look around and there is no one who sees.   

Yet, how do I not know if affirming angels applauded my unseen cast and broke the silence of the morning;  And, perhaps, the meaning of my life.

I can know I am not alone.

I can also consider the possibility that at least at times, if I had snapped a picture, the frame would have been too small for an angel to enter this most enchanting moment.