July 1, 2011, Lakewood, CO
10:08:12, hours MDT
...continued hiker’s journal…
July 1st… Remember that day last year?
July 4th, last year I took down the wreath at Kyle’s place in G-town and placed it on the free table over at the Arid Club.
One year- on the 4th- I was hosed down with others during the heat on NRIM. The wildland fire team did the spraying as the parade of employees wound their way through NRIM village center.
Reminds me of the time in my living whereby I became aware of the joggers and runners over in Boulder, during the ‘70s.
I remember a stand-out performance.
A jogger was jogging on the median during the afternoon rush hour with three congested commuter lanes each way nearly bumper- to- bumper. I wasn’t incredulous, disbelieving or skeptical. Although not persuaded to join and jog in the exhaust of these 60’s and 70’s era cars and trucks- I was given to many careful thoughts over a long period of time. This incident heightened my awareness regarding people and their egos and their apparent need to show- off their prowess, ability and skill.
This event that I experienced is comparable to showing off your talent in the reading of a newspaper, in my mind. I could not see the benefit in the inhalation of the exhaust, working his body that hard. Some require recognition for their efforts, RIGHT? When was the most recent instance in which you were recognized for reading a magazine out loud in public? SEE?—same thing in my mind.
From the foreword of Of Men and Mountains, William O. Douglas, 1950
“I learned early that the richness of life is found in adventure. Adventure calls on all the faculties of mind and spirit. It develops self- reliance and independence. Life then teems with excitement. But man is not ready for adventure unless he is rid of fear. For fear confines him and limits his scope. He stays tethered by strings of doubt and indecision and has only a small and narrow world to explore….”
Finding the manner, method and technique to solidify a philosophy has been my recent life’s work. Get it that fear is the manner or way if you will, that tends to wear us down from life-giving attempts to become part of the great adventure called human living. We become isolated and our worldview shrinks not unlike that of the addict, whose existence closes around her. Some [worldviews] close into less than 5 square miles and psychologically even more so- she is constricted. Not unlike symptoms of depression. Not unlike the new- wave republicans who pontificate, go on and on and then preach to us about how they are not swayed by this or that. What a mess the last presidential administration left in its wake of “making us safe.” Where is the adventure or richness in life, in the above? Were we asleep at the switch using the proffered- up means to the end or were we fearful and dropped the ball?
Justice Douglas has it right on the beam where he remarked, “…But man is not ready for adventure unless he is rid of fear. For fear confines him and limits his scope. He stays tethered by strings of doubt and indecision and has only a small and narrow world to explore….”
Some contend that financial insecurities will leave us. Some others assert that feelings will no longer become emotional emergencies. Some may argue that jogging inside is the ticket. However you arrive whereby you no longer give pause to putting off the adventure, no longer place bargain hunting, latte-sipping or on- line dating ahead of the call of the wild― the new day in life will arrive. The straight- forward unwavering noisy solitude that place gives to our soul. We all have that place. The jogger from long ago disappeared into the bric a brac of my experiencing and I doubt― I doubt that the jogger’s place was ever really on that automobile-congested and smoky median to begin with. It was just the means to an end.
Becoming confused with the means to the end is like the trap some have fallen for, like becoming tethered to the digital- hand held device the advertisers tell us we need. Ever notice how the slickness of the marketeering goes? Consumers are as well called “early or late adopters.”
Apparently according to their research and development teams marketing this stuff to us, it isbetter to be an early adopter, to get a leg up and get ahead of the crowd. Ever notice this mentality on the shopping day afterThanksgiving?
The stampeding, in efforts to give those in the front of the early morning lines a leg up for yet another widget, thingamajig or some must have electronic device?
The late adopters get the bargain priced goods. Some will say that bargain hunting is worth it. Worth what?
Some apparently believe that television watching is the means to the end. Some of the same may believe that texting in public is the means to the end. Tell me, what do these folks gain by distracting themselves from the present moment anyhow? Did not Tolle remark that the present moment is all we have and that is crazy to rush through it in an attempt to get somewhere else emotionally?
Thank God, Douglas wrote this― “I learned early that the richness of life is found in adventure….” How rich is your living today? Did you give yourself the time it takes to arrive today?
Thanks again for your thoughtful comments.
