3.04.18
Everything becomes more and more pragmatic leading up to things like this. The romance wears thin...not thin per se, but it takes a back seat. Lists and lists checked and double-triple checked. Last minute things I think I'm forgetting. Last minute trips to REI. Last runs to Costco and Sprouts. Batches of home-made trail bars cooking nonstop making the house perpetually smell like a cookie factory. Where does the cat stay? Old friends offer to help. People ask more and more questions. It's the topic wherever I go or "Oh hey man, I thought you already left!" Tonight I got "So that'll take you what, like two-three weeks?" The look on his date's face. And things come in different context. Random woman walks up and starts talking about how she likes to always have a song in her head when she's doing anything boring. My first thought goes to the trail. I always have songs in my head anyway. This week it's been the kids I recorded last week. A washed-out gothic something I can't quite define. Three chords that keep repeating. I'll catch myself and try to start a Boards of Canada riff instead...those can drone on for days when they really sink in ;) Small things seems smaller. Basic bits of info that meant something relevant a few months before are relegated to some corner, usually discarded and forgotten. It gives me the sense that I'm forgetting something all the time. Music production is a thing that comes out of the head and heart and I've been in a world where 'remembering' the most minute microseconds dominates the place I walk in. Working at my other job...doing what I do on a daily basis has been full of this 'thing' for ages. A parallel life. As in "Yes, go to work, work hard, hold things together...but the precious to-do lists and percolating ideas i.e. what was that sample I heard the other week? What was that from? I wonder if the record shop has this...should I get another VCO? Why does that synth sound better at 24 than 96? On and on. So, generally I think my mind is going "Wait a sec...what's going on here?" It's created a general blur and some people notice. I notice. My talking has dropped off considerably and new lists are appearing and re-wiring...maybe new connections going on. No idea.
On the one hand...walking is so profoundly simple. In all these training hikes I've come to appreciate the process such a great deal that I can't imagine leaving it behind...even after this. The simple act of walking does things to the brain, digestive system, all systems it seems. Time perception changes. Things that bother me incessantly sometimes...they all drop off and everything comes into a crystal clear focus. I find myself in some ultra-lucid state where ideas make sense. I think it's the raw reality of walking in nature. Just being out there on the dirt with the trees. Fresh air. All the things I've already written about, but every time I go out I learn something new. About myself...about accumulated undigested data etc. Either that or it gives ones access to one giant reset button. What happens after 5 months of that?
There are fears present. Of course. I've come to terms with most of them. Well, honestly with all the adventures I've already done...fear becomes mundane. It doesn't help either way and I wouldn't go out if the anxiety outweighed the excitement. I say that now.
There's going to be a moment at those pillars in Campo and probably weeks afterward where I go "WTF am I doing?" Again...god how many times have I asked myself that?"
What am I doing sleeping in this train station in Munich? What am I doing on this stranger's couch in Denver, San Francisco, Austin? What am I doing trying to make this summit in these conditions? Why am jumping out of this plane? Look...
Those are all adventures. Choices. The biggest WTF moments in life are "Why am I still in this relationship? Why did I just move across the country to try and 'fix' things? Why do I have the same patterns, habits, grudges, etc ad nauseum. What are these belief systems? Is this inspiration pure and simple or is it something you're incessantly trying to prove? To whom? Is it both?
I could stand to be more smug I suppose. It's easy when you can just hide behind the music. That's what it's for right? It's incredibly subjective and you're not accountable to anyone. So is the life I designed. I thought. But there's nothing to hide behind when it amounts to the most basic form being and movement.
At the end of the day I barely consider any of these things. It's easier to opt into when it's on paper. In a blog. Maybe. Self-deprecation? I don't know. Sometimes it's just another cop-out. See what I did there?
Tomorrow I'm selling the car to a friend. I'll miss that car...
I 'll wake up slowly in a warm house.
Turn faucets and flush things without thinking twice.
Toss clothes in washers and dryers...
Maybe cooking these trail bars is better if I just turn on that playlist I made...nah. The other playlist.
Falling asleep...to this podcast I wanted to get to...maybe some more trail inspiration.
Maybe this list of 'trail donts' or 'why i left the PCT' or what not to take/life-straw vs sawyer/trail hunger/post-trail depression/PCT VS AT/caloriespermilefatsvscarbslabelyourdropboxes.
We weren't meant to consume information like this. We weren't meant to move at 75MPH down paved highways. Not meant to do so many of the things that we do non-stop every day. But we do it anyway. Maybe on instinct. Maybe with the idea on some subconscious level that it amounts to furthering the genome. Fair enough. Maybe none of it is so bad at the end of the day. We have large brains and who wouldn't rather sleep on a down comforter instead of a wet freezing tent? Didn't we already do that for thousands of years? Don't we deserve better? Don't we get the slightest respite from slogging through creation fighting disease and each other at every turn? Seven billion people on islands on a ball made of 70% water. Mortality is at an all-time low despite what appears like rampant stupidity every time a television flickers to life. Never before have so many had access to education, clean water, and information. But...
Treks and adventures don't simply amount to 'western lifestyle choices'. It's be easy to assume so...but there is a longing deep in the soul of mankind that exists in every generation of every culture around the globe. It isn't even really about adventure. It isn't about accolades. It isn't about escape or transcendence or fresh air.
It's about communion.
I think this is why people do seemingly insane things like Anna Purna, solo Antarctica, or test airplanes and swim the English Channel. Every single thing we attempt involves a level of risk, either physical or psychological. But we don't live like it. We seem to be singular as far we know in our ability hold a novel independent vision in our heads and experiment endlessly with our own experience.
It seems so much safer in a warm home with a fire softly burning. It seems that way...but it isn't. I've had friends pass on and the most stark perception during those periods is how unbelievably short this life is. How we're surrounded by what appears by all measurement to approximate infinity.
And yet here we are-for what amounts to, in relation, as an infinitesimally minute fraction of time.
On the one hand...walking is so profoundly simple. In all these training hikes I've come to appreciate the process such a great deal that I can't imagine leaving it behind...even after this. The simple act of walking does things to the brain, digestive system, all systems it seems. Time perception changes. Things that bother me incessantly sometimes...they all drop off and everything comes into a crystal clear focus. I find myself in some ultra-lucid state where ideas make sense. I think it's the raw reality of walking in nature. Just being out there on the dirt with the trees. Fresh air. All the things I've already written about, but every time I go out I learn something new. About myself...about accumulated undigested data etc. Either that or it gives ones access to one giant reset button. What happens after 5 months of that?
There are fears present. Of course. I've come to terms with most of them. Well, honestly with all the adventures I've already done...fear becomes mundane. It doesn't help either way and I wouldn't go out if the anxiety outweighed the excitement. I say that now.
There's going to be a moment at those pillars in Campo and probably weeks afterward where I go "WTF am I doing?" Again...god how many times have I asked myself that?"
What am I doing sleeping in this train station in Munich? What am I doing on this stranger's couch in Denver, San Francisco, Austin? What am I doing trying to make this summit in these conditions? Why am jumping out of this plane? Look...
Those are all adventures. Choices. The biggest WTF moments in life are "Why am I still in this relationship? Why did I just move across the country to try and 'fix' things? Why do I have the same patterns, habits, grudges, etc ad nauseum. What are these belief systems? Is this inspiration pure and simple or is it something you're incessantly trying to prove? To whom? Is it both?
I could stand to be more smug I suppose. It's easy when you can just hide behind the music. That's what it's for right? It's incredibly subjective and you're not accountable to anyone. So is the life I designed. I thought. But there's nothing to hide behind when it amounts to the most basic form being and movement.
At the end of the day I barely consider any of these things. It's easier to opt into when it's on paper. In a blog. Maybe. Self-deprecation? I don't know. Sometimes it's just another cop-out. See what I did there?
Tomorrow I'm selling the car to a friend. I'll miss that car...
I 'll wake up slowly in a warm house.
Turn faucets and flush things without thinking twice.
Toss clothes in washers and dryers...
Maybe cooking these trail bars is better if I just turn on that playlist I made...nah. The other playlist.
Falling asleep...to this podcast I wanted to get to...maybe some more trail inspiration.
Maybe this list of 'trail donts' or 'why i left the PCT' or what not to take/life-straw vs sawyer/trail hunger/post-trail depression/PCT VS AT/caloriespermilefatsvscarbslabelyourdropboxes.
We weren't meant to consume information like this. We weren't meant to move at 75MPH down paved highways. Not meant to do so many of the things that we do non-stop every day. But we do it anyway. Maybe on instinct. Maybe with the idea on some subconscious level that it amounts to furthering the genome. Fair enough. Maybe none of it is so bad at the end of the day. We have large brains and who wouldn't rather sleep on a down comforter instead of a wet freezing tent? Didn't we already do that for thousands of years? Don't we deserve better? Don't we get the slightest respite from slogging through creation fighting disease and each other at every turn? Seven billion people on islands on a ball made of 70% water. Mortality is at an all-time low despite what appears like rampant stupidity every time a television flickers to life. Never before have so many had access to education, clean water, and information. But...
Treks and adventures don't simply amount to 'western lifestyle choices'. It's be easy to assume so...but there is a longing deep in the soul of mankind that exists in every generation of every culture around the globe. It isn't even really about adventure. It isn't about accolades. It isn't about escape or transcendence or fresh air.
It's about communion.
I think this is why people do seemingly insane things like Anna Purna, solo Antarctica, or test airplanes and swim the English Channel. Every single thing we attempt involves a level of risk, either physical or psychological. But we don't live like it. We seem to be singular as far we know in our ability hold a novel independent vision in our heads and experiment endlessly with our own experience.
It seems so much safer in a warm home with a fire softly burning. It seems that way...but it isn't. I've had friends pass on and the most stark perception during those periods is how unbelievably short this life is. How we're surrounded by what appears by all measurement to approximate infinity.
And yet here we are-for what amounts to, in relation, as an infinitesimally minute fraction of time.
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