[at-l] cell phones as the ink blot test

[icw at esisnet.com (Clark Wright)]

I have read a lot of the recent posts about cell phones, and have 
learned some things - perhaps the most important lesson being that - 
fancy this - I have mixed feelings on "the issue."  Here are some 
ramblin thoughts that wander thru my fevered mind . . .

The issue of the AT and the idea of "wildness," eloquently discussed by 
Weary, RnR and others, is not so simple . . . some of the early founders 
of the AT saw it as a lot less wild, and a lot more about recreation . . .

Even more confusing, I still like to softly suggest that we all go way 
back into our own selves and ask just what is the basis upon which we 
define things like "wild" versus "unnatural" or man-made versus 
"nature-made?"  Are we not also "natural" carbon-based organisms on this 
whirling orb of gases, liquids and solids hurtling around one sun in a 
perhaps infinite universe of suns?  In that context, is a cell phone 
more or less natural than a redwood tree?  I do not ask these questions 
to be silly, trite or to get to some predetermined answer - for the one 
thing I am slowing learning in my life is that there are a damn lot 
fewer "anwers" out there in the black and white way I used to crave than 
I used to think there were . . . in fact, just as the saying that it is 
the journey and not the destination resonates more and more with me, I 
think the same thing applies to trying to reach black and white answers 
. . . many times, the answer is a helluva lot less important than the 
process of thinking and reflection triggered by the desire to get an 
answer . . .

As I reflect back on my experiences in 2001, where I took a cell phone 
at the urging of my wife and other family members, that cell phone 
stayed in my pack most of the time, came in real handy several times, 
allowed me to cry and laugh with my wife and others on occasions when, 
by myself on some wild and wonderful ridge, I would get the urge to call 
someone . . . yet, on the other hand, it was always there in the back of 
my mind, calling softly for me to jolt myself back into a separate 
reality . . . one that in many ways I was trying to escape - or was I?  
Hell, three full years later, I still am confused about the yin/yang of 
my yearning for the woods and my equal yearning of a more civilized, 
social structure in which to share experiences from the woods, share 
other experiences, and experience other feelings, sights, sounds and 
emotions . . . I honestly think that all my collective experiences are 
equally important, and equally "natural" parts of me, my planet, and my 
search for God and spiritual understandings .  .  .

Don't ask me how I got there from a cell phone discussion, but I think 
it is a legitimate journey to wander along . . .

Cell phones also conjure up images of tons of towers potentially dotting 
the landscape on or near the AT . . . while I personally do not want any 
more towers, I do not couch that desire in some black and white terms of 
"nature" versus "non-nature," but rather in simple, honest, selfish 
terms - I just don't want to see them there while on that leg of my 
journey, which necessarily prefers an absence of man=made objects.  
Having said that, I immediatley laugh at myself, thinking about all the 
other man-made objects that I DID see, every single day on the AT:  
shelters, springs, poer lines, jet airplanes, highways, trash, eroded 
trailbeds, and a gazillion darn painted trees with all that white stuff 
on them! :)

In the end, I think if I was to do it again, I might leave the cell 
phone at home - I think I am tempted to answer its siren song too often 
in terms of wanting to "call home" when I do not need to . . . plus, it 
imposes, like all material goods, other burdens, such as batteries, 
chargers, coodinating with a bounce box, finding a plug, etc.

One last thought - to paraphrase John Locke:  "No man is a cell"   :)

thru-thinker