Re[2]: [at-l] Hike the Approach Trail!

[tmcginnis@ucclan.state.in.us (Thomas McGinnis)]

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: [at-l] Hike the Approach Trail! 
Author:  "Kristen Kupersmith" <kkupersmith@thor24.com> at ima
Date:    11/18/99 10:00 AM


I am thinking of bailing on the approach trail due to time.
     
I am flying in on Saturday March 25th LATE in the morning, and I figure that 
it will be mid-afternoon before I get to the trailhead. 
     
Kristen
     
     *******>>>>>>The everSloe Toe respond-aye-voo wit'
     All the more reason to benefit from a separation between your rushed 
     trip to the trailhead and the point where you first see the blue blaze 
     on the rock, then the plaque, then the first white blaze. Don't rush 
     that moment.
     
     Just getting to the trail is a major-cool thing: a flash of 
     inspiration, a conception, an dream, an experiment, a plan, executions 
     of detail upon detail, plan revision upon revision, good-byes aplenty, 
     trepidation, and then "Charge!" Even those leading lives uncomplicated 
     by employers, spouses, children, mortgages, etc, *still* should 
     consider themselves victorious in casting off the shackles of 
     contemporary "ordinary life."
     
     Thoreau wrote "The majority of [men] live lives of quiet desperation." 
     What he meant was that most of us live largely "unexamined" lives 
     filled with convention and contrived detail, and there's something in 
     us which rebels at the continued unthinking adoption of society's 
     mores. To choose to attempt a throughhike of the Appalachian Trail is 
     to very loudly say "No." to many conventions of society, and it takes 
     some guts. To echo Datto's post from last month:
     
          When you start going public with your calling, you'll begin 
          hearing people's rash opinions about it. 'You shall know the 
          truth,' Flannery O'Connor once said, 'and it shall make you 
          odd.'
          
     Reward yourself with some time to transition between what you're 
     leaving and what you're starting. It's a very big moment. You may 
     never EVER be able to be in that moment again. Savor it.
     
     Here's some sense: You'll be hiking for the better part of six months 
     and 2,200 miles. Afford yourself a day to hike the approach trail.
     
     
     Have just a self-satisfying day, Y'all.
     Sloetoe
     
     
     
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