I was wrong when I said:
In other news, I'm going on a NC Outward Bound trip with my students from May 10-13. It's an outdoor experience with no showers or toilet paper (read the fine print).There actually was TP. I was able to actually avoid having to poop in the woods, though, as the urge didn't really hit me until the evening of day two, when we came down from the summit of Table Rock and there is a parking lot and outhouse there that we were allowed to use. Also, we wore rain gear so much (especially Sunday night, during the storm) that I didn't get very dirty at all, and I was able to clean up some with baby wipes and such in the aforementioned outhouse. So, for me at least, the typically-cited discomforts of "roughing it" were not really discomforts at all.
- Day 1: Got all our gear together (Eric called this the "Duffle Shuffle" IIRC) and walked about 10 minutes to the intersection of multiple trails, called "five points" I think. They taught the students how to make a shelter of their tarps and set up camp.
- Day 2: Went to the summit of Table Rock via the Devil's Cellar. It was tough for me, as I am so out of shape. I also had overloaded my gear by trying to be tough and packing two of the four dromedaries, the 5-L water containers. I had to get T.U. to carry one for me after a few minutes of hiking. Both my soles of the shoes I borrowed from C.S. blew out, and my feet got very wet. We camped at the base of Table Rock, just off a campsite, and a large storm blew in that night. It was damned cold and some trees fell, but we had heavy-duty rain gear, which blocked the wind and cold out entirely. I went to bed early, though, as my feet were hurting.
- Day 3: We walked down the S.O.B. trail ("shortness of breath") to near base camp and went rock climbing and repelling. Best day by far. We camped that night on a platform just off from base camp.
- Day 4: Awoke at 5:45 AM to do a 4.2 mile run around the trails. I had to run in Crocs(R) because the low-top hiking shoes had blown out. The run's a story in itself. We left around 1 PM.
Luke seemed very at peace with himself. It's a very physical job, and he had injured his ankle, but he never once complained, although he used walking poles to help support the weak stride. This made me think of how his life for the past eight years was probably going to get more complicated soon, just as mine was. My fault, in retrospect, was in thinking, "How long can he do this job, and what will he do later in life?" I thought this before the solo time of introspection, and realizing that this was a faulty notion occurred to me then.
We did our solo time while at the Devil's Cellar, spending a few hours alone with a journal and the stated intent of reflection, introspection and enjoying the views. We were also told to write a letter to ourselves during this time, one which would be collected by the guides and then mailed to us 6 months down the road. I took a few minutes to do this, and wrote a letter to myself about Transcendentalism. In April '07, I quoted Thoreau. I didn't realize that in May '08 he'd come back to me with a vengence:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan- like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."What I wrote in the letter to myself was about how I had changed over the years. As I reflect now on my life's choices, I look back and see a boy, dumb as he was, who had a real sense of adventure and thought that life offered many exciting mysteries to solve. I used to stare out of the classroom window of Mrs. Reynold's chemistry class and Mr. Blevin's biology class and contemplate going off into the woods with but a backpack full of gear. I felt the call of the wild in some way.
Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
...
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. Maybe they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change.
Walden
Growing older, I am now more concerned with security and comfort. Have I lost for that? Am I the less for it? The fact that I feel cynical about life...did the "meanness" of it get to me? Have I forgotten the wisdom of KISS?
I pondered these things in my solo time.
I also snuck in a nap.
I ponder these things still -- is it the case that the responsibilities we accumulate throughout life, with a family and with debt obligations, lessens the vigor of life itself? Will the way that our human evolution has occurred reverse itself to some degree later on? Will we move back away from urbanization to live simply and close to nature? Ideally, our technology and progress would simplify life, but the real does not meet the ideal. Not in that.
I don't know if any of the students (4 girls, 5 boys) got what I got from it, but I really enjoyed the peace, the absence of an itinerary or schedule or clock. I think we forget the part of our biology that is 100% animal. We are human, yes, but humans are social animals that have moved away from where their biology evolved -- nature red in tooth and claw -- and perhaps we are the less for it.
Maybe Luke had things figured out. Worrying about how you'll support yourself is the hallmark of the modern man. Living in the present is difficult. That's all the more reason to cultivate it.
