faith and ribbons... Re: [at-l] "Why" and "Purpose"

[spiriteagle99 at hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Rafe wrote:
>
>At 03:10 AM 8/20/2005 -0700, Sloe wrote:
>
>>### Well, so far, I have told you that it's about having faith,
>>and JimO has told you it's about having attitude, yet you're
>>still focused on a "why" or "purpose". Who gives a flop about
>>the why? IT DON'T MATTER. IT'S GOING TO CHANGE TOMORROW. IT WAS
>>DECIDED IN IGNORANCE. Does that help?
>
>Yes and no.  I still think you're talking semantics here,
>though I appreciate you're doing your best to answer a
>difficult question that I've posed.  And in posing that
>question, I wasn't expecting easy answers.

There are no easy answers to anything worthwhile.  Another URL -
http://www.spiriteaglehome.com/cdt%20contract.html

When you get down to the "contract" pay particular attention to points 3, 4 
and 5. Point 2 is an option that few of todays hikers choose.  This was 
"our" definition of the "why/purpose" of a 2800 mile (or thereabouts) hike.  
We knew what we wanted before we left for Montana - and the same "contract" 
was still valid when I wrote this - 3 days before we finished in New Mexico. 
  When we leave for New Mexico in April, we'll be using pretty much the same 
contract.

OTOH - there WERE specific places that we wanted to see along the way.  The 
Winds, the Gila, Glacier in winter (we'd seen it in summer), the South San 
Juans - amd a lot more.

When we were on the PCT, the SoCal desert got to us for a while - even 
though I'd fallen in love with the New Mexican desert (they ARE different - 
very different).  But even that early in the hike, we KNEW that we wanted to 
see the Sierras and the Russian Wilderness, and the Cascades.  And that's 
what kept us going a couple times.  Yeah - we could have seen all those 
places without hiking the entire trail to get to them - but we're thruhikers 
- we're crazy - and we're intrepid.  <g>

>The point is, to keep going when it's no longer fun, a
>sane, rational person has to find -- or invent -- a purpose,
>a reason, a rationale for doing so.

At one point on the AT, my reason for not quitting was that if I did, my 
sister-in-law would never let me live it down.  But that had nothing to do 
with why I was out there in the first place.

>I understand that
>the reasons will change as you go, and the reasons
>"chosen" before the hike are quite likely to be irrelevant
>when the going gets rough.

That's sometimes called personal growth - one learns - and adapts to the new 
knowledge.

You're an engineer.  Try shedding the"engineer" personna.  Not necessarily 
publicly - but privately at first.  I was born, raised and trained to be an 
engineer - and I became as much scientist as engineer.  There IS a 
difference.  It won't make it to the list, but I'll attach one of the most 
accurate descriptions of an engineer that I've ever run across.

>Words like "faith" just don't cut it for this hiker.

I wouldn't press this too hard anyway, but my AT hike made my faith a lot 
deeper.  Not that I was looking for that, but there were too many incidents 
that were too good for them to be coinkydence. YMMV - especially about that.

More than that - I've had the "faith" to twice quit my job so I could go 
hiking.  Ginny has done it 3 times.  And we'll both do it again in April.  
I'll be quitting a job where they really want me to stay - and they're 
looking for ways to promote me.

>Blue Sky walked because "failure is not an option."

I was told for most of my life that failure wasn't an option with regard to 
marriage.  They lied.

But I'm still not a great believer in failed thruhikes - especially if the 
hiker learned what they wanted or need to learn.  It's rarely what they 
thought they were after when they started.

Lesson # 3317285 or something like that (mine) - humans will only keep on 
doing something as long as the rewards outweigh the price.  When the price 
is too great, they stop.

None of this is even remotely related to money.

>But how does that square with freedom?  We all have the
>freedom to step off the AT at the nearest trailhead or
>logging road - or never step onto it, for that matter.

Choices - always choices.  Some people love them - others hate them.

One of my Trail partners left the trail after 1200 miles - he'd learned what 
he started the trail to learn. He didn't need to continue.  That's not 
failure - it's freedom.

I have the freedom to act very un-engineerish and quit my job to go hike.  
For "me" it's worth the price (consequences).  For others, it's not.  The 
expression "Freedom isn't free" has more than one meaning.

All actions have consequences - many (most?) times unforseen consequences.  
Some of those unforseen consequences are negative - and some of them are 
positive.  It takes some degree of faith to pay your money, roll the dice 
and accept the results - whether good or bad.

>Sheesh.  I think you're out of line here, Sloe.
>And in any case, telling me that my love ain't
>true is hardly a motivator.  Even Jim Owen
>knows better than that.  I'm going to try to
>erase that comment from my memory.

Not sure thats what he was telling you, but it's up to him to straighten 
that out.

>I'll just say for now that I think of myself in a
>category with, say, Saunterer or Chainsaw or
>Shane.  Given a choice of where to spend my
>free time, I'm most likely to choose a mountain trail,
>which (IMO) is infinitely more exciting than, say,
>a beach chair in Aruba or a blackjack table in Vegas.

Yep - you're hooked.  We spent a couple nights in Las Vegas in May.  Went to 
the Casinos the last night we were there.  Good food.  Otherwise it was a 
wasteland as far as we were concerned.  Likely won't do that again.

>Do I love all woods equally?  Hell no.  I'd much
>prefer if the AT was all like Maine, and that's
>the truth -- the way I see it, anyway.  I cut my
>hiking teeth on Moosilauke, Lafayette, and the
>high peaks of the Adirondacks -- so maybe I'm
>a little spoiled.

Hmmm - or maybe just "conditioned."  Personal opinion - every place has it's 
own beauty - whether green mountains or dry desert or rocky peaks.  Do you 
know how many kinds of desert there are?  Do you know they're ALL beautiful 
in their own way?  The problem is that most hikers don't know how to look 
for the beauty in the places that are not familiar.  but it can be learned.

>I have certainly considered (as Ginny Owen
>suggests) that maybe one of the other two long
>trails might be a better fit for my love of scenic
>views.

You might love it.  Browse through the journals on our website.  You "might" 
find someplace you'd like.  Or try Chomps site.

There's more coming on our website - but not until I get time to put it 
together.  We spent some time in Utah and then did a raft trip through the 
Grand Canyon back in May.  It's coming.

>Yes, IMO -- one can have too much of the
>long, green tunnel.  And I appreciate that
>merely thinking that way may preclude my
>ever finishing a thru hike of the AT.

Nobody will hold a gun to your head and make you finish a thruhike.  In 
fact, personally, I have as much if not more respect for those who section 
hike the Trail.  By comparison, thruhiking is easy for some of us.  Some of 
us don't have the patience to spend 5 or 10 or 20 years using our vacations 
to finsh the AT.  Section hikers pay a bigger price in almost every way for 
that 2000 miler patch.  They deserve a lot more credit than they get.

The long green tunnel - most long trails have their own version of it.  We 
were told about the expansive views from the PCT.  And sometimes it was 
true.  And sometimes the manzanita had grown up to be 8 or 10 feet tall, so 
the view was blocked.  And the trail was a long, HOT green tunnel.

There are also the burned forests in Montana and Yellowstone. They can be 
depressing - but they can also be inspiring if you look at the new growth 
and understand that life is persistent and will not be defeated.  I have a 
picture of a single flower that was growing in the Winds in the middle of a 
vast landscape of rock and ice and snow. It's one of my favorites because it 
illustrates the persistence of "life."  It's beautiful.  "Life" is 
beautiful.

Walk softly,
Jim


http://www.spiriteaglehome.com/