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A toenail has broken loose and causes me pain whenever it gets moved (every step). I wrap a strip of duct tape around the toe to hold it down. After getting the tape on, it occurs to me that there will be no way of getting the duct tape off without taking the toenail with it.
The meal is such an impressive spread I am tempted to take a picture of it, but I am too embarrassed to do so in front of the other customers.
Experience is enriched by reliving it, contemplating it, and trying to describe it to another person.
Thoughts are the most effective weapon in the human arsenal. On the upside, it is powerful to realize that goals are reached primarily by establishing the proper state of mind. But if allowed the perspective that our endeavors are propped upon nothing but a notion, we falter.
Anything that we consider to be an accomplishment takes effort to achieve. If it were easy, it would not be nearly as gratifying. What is hardship at the moment will add to our sense of achievement in the end.
They are in the small sect of thru-hikers that could be dubbed “career hikers.” During the off-season, Doc does landscape work and Llama waits tables. These aren’t jobs with “a future”; they’re jobs that will fund their next adventure.
Our vision becomes so narrow that risk is trying a new brand of cereal, and adventure is watching a new sitcom. Over time I have elevated my opinion of nonconformity nearly to the level of an obligation. We should have a bias toward doing activities that we don’t normally do to keep loose the moorings of society.
Hiking the AT before joining the workforce was an opportunity not taken. Doing it in retirement would be sensible; doing it at this time in my life is abnormal, and therein lay the appeal. I want to make my life less ordinary.
We are outraged when we are constrained by others, but willfully, unwittingly put limits on ourselves.
Back at my workplace, at least once a year we would have an “all-hands” meeting. At that meeting, we are always reminded that the company would not be what it is without us; we of the all-hand class are important. Employees who are important don’t need to be told, and if they are not important, being told doesn’t make them so.
Politicians will always offer to handle education, health care, retirement, and so forth, as if they come at no cost. But there are caveats. If the government is the provider of “free” education, then the government will also decide what is taught and, potentially, how it is used. The fewer responsibilities we have, the less free we are. Communism and democracy differ in this only by a matter of degree. We can vote away freedom as easily as it can be taken away.
Buckeye is also in town to escape the bad weather. “If we were paid to do this, we would have quit by now,” he says. Obviously his joke rests on the fundamental enigma of the trail: why do we voluntarily, happily (mostly), submit ourselves to tribulation? Aside from the spectacular moments, aside from the gratification of working to accomplish a goal, there is ownership. This endeavor is much more endurable because we “own” it. We are here by choice, and we are going about it in the way of our own choosing.
This seems to be an attitude worth striving for when I return to work, to perform my job as if I was doing it under my own guidance—as I would want it done myself—not to limit myself to the role of employee, and not to refrain from giving more of myself to the job than is warranted by my pay. It is I who would benefit. Time is most enriching when spent industriously.
Usually it means I’m going too fast. I slow down, find my pace, and think about something else. Next thing I know, I’ve gone another hundred yards and I’m no longer struggling.
