This question is similar to the half-empty versus half-full glass. It’s a matter of preference. Of viewpoint.

Here am I sitting, thinking about stranded versus free and getting a deadlock. It’s a really tough issue to address.
Glass is easy, it’s always full, really, it has air in it.

Let’s set some ground-rules, life is unpredictable, you never know what will happen next, you can only assume and hope. Like Heraklit once said “Only change constant is”.

You can be hanging on a tree, being part of something bigger, enjoying the community, trying to fit in, maybe even fitting in perfectly and enjoying it. Or you can break of, hit the sea, and see where the waves take you.
The tree may fall down, die of, or get hit by a lightning and burn up, or things can go smoothly and you live this one season, and plant the seeds for the young plants to start their life in the shadows of giants, fighting for little sun, just as this giant you’re hanging of, did.

Breaking of, hitting the sea, you get outcasted by the “big whole” who won’t ever take you back again. Waves will take you to far away places, or those near by, depending on the will of gods of the sea, or mother nature, or whoever you want to call in for help. You get to rot away in the sea or washed out on a sandy beach, or a rocky one. Someone might pick you up and throw you back in, or further away on some fertile ground, or the sand may eat you out. You might be getting a new chance of life. You might start a new great “big whole” of your own on a place where it has never been one if that’s your thing, and share the inheritance of your ancestors, or you can be a lone wolf and travel the seas as long as the lady luck lets you. Whatever you like better.

Those who stay and succeed, keep the forest alive. Those who leave and succeed, make the forest spread and grow beyond anything before imaginable.

You can fail anywhere. Not every seed becomes a tree. If you have to, fail on the trip you like. That way you may not get to your destination, but you’ll like living it.

Stranded or free?

Whatever you want it to be. If you’re at a place where you want to be, you’re free, if you’re not, you’re stranded.

No road guaranties to lead you to satisfaction, take the one that satisfies you on the way.
There is nothing wrong living the way everybody else does if you like it, keep the forest alive!
If that’s not for you, we could use more explorers 😉

This takes your risk away!

So what is it? Stranded or free?