[at-l] RE: motivations I. was Self Doubt (How to help a Newbie: Update 4 - Part II)

[shane@theplacewithnoname.com (Shane Steinkamp)]

This has turned out to be something that I'm glad I started.
Far less grief in this thread...

I'd like to thank everyone.  This is all good stuff.

> ### Wanderlust! (What else need be said?)

It's perfect, really.

> > - but the mental self doubt that what you are
> doing is selfish
> ### Ouch. Dependent on individual's
> circumstances, 100%. Don't
> look for clarity there, Shane. We're all from different
> backgrounds off-trail.

Agreed - which is why I asked the question.  Approaching the
same idea from different directions is often helpful.

I found Sloetoe's comments from the heart very enlightening.

I suppose I should answer my own question about
motivation...

I am not a thruhiker.  Never have been.  Probably never will
be.  I am a wanderer.  I intend to start on the AT in '06,
and barring accident and misadventure, I'll find myself in
Maine eventually.  This is the first time I ever actually
set out to go somewhere specific.

In the past, the wanderlust monster just appears one day and
drags me off to some place I've never been before.  When I
hiked the one particular trail, I didn't start out to hike
it - I was going to hike somewhere else.  Then, I happened
to find myself on the north end of it, and I said to myself,
"Well, now here's something interesting..."  BOOM!  I
eventually find myself very far away from where I thought
I'd be.  In some ways the wandering itinerant lifestyle is
very liberating.  (In other ways, it's a drag...)

Rafe related his experience that he got caught by the trail,
and that the trail owned him in some way and he was
miserable for it.  I can respect that, and I've seen it
before.  I have a similar problem with trails.  I'm an
addict.  "Ooo... Look!  A trail...  I wonder where that
goes..." - and before you know it I'm in the middle of
nowhere following deer trails across the countryside.  It
can be hard to break away from that.

On the flip side, I hate backpacking.  Lugging any pack
across the countryside will, at some point or another,
completely suck.  Oh, but I just can't stop wandering, and I
need the pack to do it...

I've never really had self doubt.  I can usually tell if I
can do something or not.  I do the things I can, and don't
trouble about the rest.  For example, I'll never climb Mt.
Everest.  I know I'm  not capable, so I won't try, and I'll
never worry about it.  In my younger days, I was not so
smart...

So that's my motivation.  Simple wanderlust.  The only other
motivation is the quest for special experiences, and one
particular feeling, which Bill Hicks summed up this way:
"the heavens parted and God rained down gifts of forgiveness
onto my being, healing me on every level, and I realized
that our true nature is spirit not body, that we are eternal
beings, and God’s love is unconditional.  There is nothing
we can ever do to change that, and it is only our illusion
that we are separate from God or that we are alone; In fact,
the reality is that we are one with God, and He loves us."

Of course, words fail for such things...

Shane