I have just begun reading a book of memoirs that Pearl gave me last week. I share this snippet not because of any metaphorical application but just for its worthiness.

On the plains, the horizon is always with us and there is no retreating from it. Its blankness travels with our every step and waits for us at every point of the compass. Because we have very few reference points on the spare earth, we seem to creep over it, one tiny point of consciousness between the empty earth and the overarching sky.

–Jill Ker Conway in The Road from Coorain