3 May 1999 -- Persistence under fanciful premises
I have once again come up the rough road with that "overwhelmed" feeling,
knowing how soon I need to go back and try to get at some more of my responsibilities.
It is a bit of a job sometimes to indulge in this getaway, even
if the actual time spent here is no more than that needed to write an account
of the visit. As I spend another afternoon out here in the woods, there
is a nagging sense that "something big" is going on at the office, the
house, or the rest of the online world. I am sure that I will sorely
regret having missed it during this, my time of truancy. I am reminded
now of a plaque I saw on the desk of one of our staff at the office:
"I don't take my problems home from work with me. I have a whole
separate set there!"
Perhaps it is really true that "the devil finds work for idle hands",
as if the natural state of a modern person is one of work. So much
of "proper" occupation is other-directed; I would be celebrated
as heroic if I had a home life in which I lavished as much attention on
a dependent family as I currently do on myself. It has occurred to
me that the great honor bestowed upon those fully-"normal" ones is not
the recognition of any one noteworthy deed. Rather than decisive
single moments of performance above and beyond the call of duty, the everyday
heroes have simply committed themselves to long-term yet unremarkably "ordinary"
duty. By meeting the terms of nominal compliance; by day-in, day-out
faithfulness, they show their mettle.
Well, my order of present duty is to try to relax in this woodland enclave,
even if it takes an ongoing process of active imagination to hold my place.
I wonder at times about those who have really done it and moved to country
as untravelled as this. They are probably still faced with an ongoing
host of small annoyances and lingering details of business with those they
have left below. They must regard me in a puzzled yet kindly and
sympathetic way, as I might in my real life when I hear the defiant teens
on Ricki or Sally--"I'm grown now and you can't tell me what to do!"
No, there is no escaping the call to mundane, mindless duty. Even
Thoreau viewed his Walden estate in terms of the proceeds he could
earn from tending his Bean Field.
Out in the real hill country might sit the enlightened ones,
with their satellite connectivity and running water, reading of my ongoing
naïveté. They endure as they can my vain pretense to original
thought and my sketchy knowledge of the classics they put away as a 20-year-old
undergrad. They must ponder instead the curiosity that resides in
a man who would spend so much time fabricating a world in which he'll never
set a flesh-and-blood foot. "Why isn't he out there making something
of himself?" they ask. "He complains, month after month, about life
in 'society', yet won't do anything about it...he deserves just what he
gets". They log off the server, then turn admiringly to the loved
one at their side and go on living as intended. They eagerly await
the celebration over the weekend, when friends come up from town.
Their gate is open; they have those annoying "Welcome" signs, with the
pineapples, etc., while I picture myself in a fenced-off one-man's-land.
No, there would be no truly idyllic life for me, alone in a space
as separated as this--I am not that far from "normal". I'd
better return now to my more realistic, limited facilities for solitude
in the city, where reminders of the others are always at hand. I
certainly do enjoy the thought, at least, of a place of rest
amid a personal expanse that is all mine. It is so quiet. The
stream continues to flow past, down past the village and on its way to
the city at its end--but leaving me behind. The trees and the rocks
will stay with me up here as long as I like, while the city moves on.
It will sweep me with it to its collective destiny, when I rejoin it as
I must.
RB
7 May 1999 -- Out to the pass and back
With the weather as dry as it has been and the temperatures rising to
join in the process, the trails in the surrounding hills above the Cabin
have become something to walk upon again, rather than trudge one's
way through in the mud. Today I decide to hike the path up
to the top of the ridge, something I haven't done for awhile. It
seems a little strange at first, when I begin the climb up the ridge face,
something I was really free to do any time I cared to put up with the harsher
weather conditions and sogginess of spring runoff season.
I lose the context of the clearing as I begin the long upward course
into the thick of the woods. Since I haven't the equipment to cut
fallen trees out of the way like on a more manicured trail, I spend some
time scrambling over and under the various trunks of the winter's casualties.
It is something, how those entire decaying rootballs, earth and all, rip
out of the ground, just like in the studies of "leverage" we did as middle
school science students. When I reach a trail juncture about halfway
up, I decide to take the path to the right, and not the one to the high
Summit atop "my" hollow, at 5040 feet.
My legs get a bit of a rest as I travel the lesser incline that turns
south, dipping into two of the "sources" of the river at 4400 feet elevation.
For those with impatience born of the habit of instant gratification, covering
all this distance and recovering the same altitude twice after hiking temporarily
downhill is a bit of frustration. As I cross the second of the two
upper branches, I remember the day last year that I scrambled up its banks
and found a spring, very near the crest of the ridge. I realize the
scale of just this "small" region when I recall the amount of water it
could produce, only 150 feet or so from the top.
Finally, the trail begins its final climb to the ridge itself, as I
knew it would. Turning onto the top, I head down again, into a broad
saddle between the hollow beyond "mine" and the one next door to the west,
which feeds the same river into the village. I reach the lowest point,
elevation 4350, which would rightfully be called a "pass" between the two
rivers that drain each side of the ridge. There is none of the grandeur
of the rock prominences I typically visit when I get away to the Summit.
The forest here is nearly as lush as when I entered from the clearing almost
two hours ago.
I can vaguely imagine the pack-animals and weary travelers of pioneering
times, as they realized that this was the way to get through.
They still had to negotiate 5 or 6 miles of rock-strewn path before they'd
get to the easier travelling and open fields below. This is how I
differ then; my objective in this country is to reach the distant and inaccessible
top out here, while theirs would be to put it behind them. As I sit
on this single path of easiest travel, I begin to think of my own rushed
journeys through the difficult terrain of real life. The truth is,
the land around this part of the trail is as free and open as it gets,
for those willing to exert some effort. I realize that in my transit
of those apparently restrictive high roads during hard trials, there is
a wonderful land of opportunity that I will not consider because it is
such rigorous going. Soon, I will begin my return to the Cabin, only
a mile away as the hawk would glide it out, but nearly three miles of climbing
over rocks and tree trunks and stream beds for me.
RB
11 May 1999 -- Looking for a good place among many
It is very warm today, and I am able to walk about freely in just nylon
shorts and a lightweight synthetic T-shirt, using my sport sandals only
because the rough gravel and loose rock fragments impede barefoot travel
in the area beyond the dooryard. As in my earlier trips to this open
area, it is sure good to get outside without always having to watch for
others in my way, who need either to be evaded (to prevent collision) or
recognized for "who they are" (to keep proper social form).
I am so tired of second-guessing every one of my urban social contacts.
The propaganda organizations of the conservatives, libertarians, politically
correct, etc. warn me that I have become dangerously infused with impropriety
by listening to their opponents. Since a fanatic of any persuasion
shouting through a bullhorn is pretty hard to ignore, I have started to
lend credibility to many of them at the same time, thus harboring the poisonous
fallacy of self-negating truth. Everyone has to be on "a side" down
there, it seems, or else he is unprincipled and lacking in conviction.
I do not actively seek controversy, but it is so woven into human practice
that the answer for now is just to stay out altogether.
I wander out amid the grasses and wildflowers of the clearing, to seek
a good leaning-against rock among the many lichen-encrusted boulders.
Today, all I want to do is live, without even the burden of having to "let
live", since this is not a passive process. It seems that
coordination with one's neighbors is a continuous act of provisioning and
reciprocity. After some time of wandering in the sun, I finally find
a good spot to just "be myself", stretching out in the partial shade of
one of the larger jagged outcroppings of granite. It is just a rock;
I do not have to inquire "how are you?" without really caring. It
has no "personal space" I invade when I rest my head on a clump of grass
at its base.
It occurs to me that I may not have given enough of the others in real
life the chance they deserve. In regarding them as unapproachable,
I become unapproachable myself, a cycle that is indeed a vicious one.
I suspect the rules of social engagement are not as intricate as I imagine
them to be. Clausewitz or Sun Tzu would have a very thin volume to
write on such an "Art". I've seen that it is not good to have an
overactive imagination when it does not have the correct guidance--each
encounter is played out towards the possible outcome of worst cost.
When a person picks his enemies and battles rather than his friends and
good times, war is all that will come of it. The bulk of "normal" society
appears to find it an easy matter to like one person and dislike the next.
The ones who can implement such selectivity effectively have a gift they
probably do not appreciate enough. The possession of an unwavering
cause among the many that exist allows fellowship to grow by defining
a positive affinity with others and a rationalization for discounting the
rest.
I turn my head to the side and gaze at the profusion of growth that
a city gardener might detest as "weeds", simply because they are not the
plant that is preferred. I sadly realize that practical living typically
involves some form of hatred of one's enemies, the Sermon on the Mount
notwithstanding. But it is a good start for the more "connected"
city-dweller to exhibit the amount of love and goodwill that most of them
do. I dream of the day when my own convictions of absolute truth
are so strong that I can at least "salute my brethren only"; to love those
that would sincerely love me in return. The notable absence of a
true utopia throughout all of history does not mean that dystopia has been
its de facto replacement. The civilized crowd seems to do
pretty well in its various "meta-topias", which achieve the best of what
is ideal, given the worldly imperfections it must face.
RB
15 May 1999 -- It is not always the waste it seems
I am once again idly "hanging around" out here among the newly-sprouting
trees and undergrowth, as the summer continues to unfold before me.
I am plagued by the annoying sense that there is really something else
I should be doing, if only I knew what it was. This is the
basic problem with avoiding commitments to others. My actions are
not forced as often and my powers of discretion are more frequently called
upon at the many junctures where "it's completely up to me". Of course,
when I do get thrown into those situations where I have no choice,
I am immediately rebellious and seek the relief I have found today, forgetting
at those moments how shallow the victory typically is.
Once again I lament my lack of solid conviction; I remain "wishy-washy",
to use the phrase that had greater popularity when I was young. But
I am loathe to jump without reservation into the world of commitment, taking
on duties just for duty's sake. Incredibly as it seems, the bulk
of that population I have left behind today sees such activity as validating
their human existence. It is a set of undertakings they seek, endure
and enjoy as "labors of love". I would think I could agree with them
on the aspect of validation, but since there is such a high certainty of
pain once a given "exercise" in the collaborative life is under way, I
"look" when I should be "leaping". They become passionately taken
by the prospect of involvement and their spurs of the moment are
not the controversy that mine are.
"But really now," I point out, "that's acting impulsively! These unfortunates
will be swept into all manner of unpleasantness, yet they seem fully willing
to live out what they could have avoided." I think back to my real-life
city home and the pile of unfinished undertakings-in-progress I already
have on my docket and realize how often I have fallen to the temptation
of momentary attractiveness. If only I had studied those matters
from every viewpoint, accurately counting up the cost, I would have peace
at last. Now, however, having been granted temporary "release" to
my hallowed isolation in the woods, I can see why the others really don't
care about ultimate cost, so long as a commitment has the deeply-resonant
ring of propriety when it is first presented to them.
It must be great, to use the words of Jim Morrison and The Doors, to
"take it as it comes / specialize in having fun". It is not good
to spend long in tortured internal deliberations on every opportunity that
arises. I can only blame my small portfolio of gratifying obligations
on the underdevelopment of my powers of discernment. Regarding indiscriminate
consumption, I suppose I am like many in the mass-media, mass-market, "because
I deserve it" milieu, and if everyone held back, the economy would promptly
crumble. I am reminded of a saying I read in one of the WWII magazines
I have up here at the Cabin, from the days when goods were being rationed
in 1943: "It is unpatriotic to buy what you do not need." Of
course, those were just the rigors of war; the American public quickly
advanced into consumption as never before when it was over, over there.
The great Cause found replacement with others of similar nobility, such
as starting large families in tract housing accessed by chrome-bedecked
automobiles.
"Well," I say to myself, as I go out to the woodshed in this weather
that is finally good for outdoor activity, "I got what I wanted".
I shall spend further time alone today, going over my obligations, existing
and potential, to see which of the ones that are "good for me" I might
eventually "learn to like". It will resemble the excruciatingly-slow
progress I have made in escaping the days of being a picky eater as a kid.
Perhaps one day I'll be feasting upon life's figurative broccoli with the
best of the omnivorous. Weird Al certainly improved upon the advice
of Michael Jackson in 1984 when he gave us the imperative to "Just Eat
It!".
RB
19 May 1999 -- Inside my shelter, as the rain falls
I wake this morning under the down comforter, looking up from my bed
at the pine-panelled lean-to ceiling of the alcove. I hear the steady
impact of rain upon the roof and realize that there will be little incentive
to be out and about today. Though it is in a way similar to a winter's
snowing-in, the rain this time of year does not cause the same sense of
being closed off from the outside. Since it is warm today and the windows
are beginning to fog up a bit inside the Cabin, I lift the wooden sashes.
The wondrously-scented air begins to circulate throughout the room, filled
with the volatile essential substances there are to be liberated from the
thoroughly soaked soil. The rain is falling generally straight down,
so that it does not enter the windows at an oblique angle as in an all-out
storm.
I look out the front from the sofa, as I get a cup of coffee from the
stove, thinking of the variety of wild evergreen shrubs that contribute
to the floor of the clearing. This is their time to send forth even
more branches, as they reach out on the faith of an ever-greater life in
the light of day. Then I look upwards to the hills of the ridge,
realizing that the entire hollow is being fed through with the great flowing
stream of the water cycle, the excess passing out through the stream behind
me in the ravine. Those who would subscribe to the notion of Gaia
might see the hollow as a single living organism, which to live must
sustain a continual throughput of fluid. Yes, the green and thriving
collection basin has its inlet and its outlet; it only supports stagnancy
in a few localized places that dry out soon enough when the sun returns.
This very cup of coffee in my hand has had its liquid origin within the
flow through the hollow, collected from the stream and made potable through
filtration into the drum cistern in the kitchen wing.
Since the overcast skies have made the room so dark, I light up the
kerosene lamp hanging near the sofa, to add the complementary color of
incandescence that is notably absent from the outdoors. It does not
compare to the illumination of an office workstation PC, of course, with
its added incongruity of remotely-derived content. Living out a day
in the city in the rain is a time to suppress all acknowledgment of the
outdoor inclemency. The fluid flow there is of information and the
perceived internal thoughts and emotions of others. There are some
who prefer such an inundating presence; they only continue when they have
complete integration with the social fabric. I suspect I am really more
like them than I'd care to admit, and I should tear down the futile
set of dikes and levees that keep my roots so impoverished and my upward
extension so slow. Still, I sense that I am somewhat impermeable
to the free-flowing interpersonal context that surrounds me in city living.
To live at all among them, I cannot dispense with a shelter against the
full force they might bring to bear against my personal fragility in the
rightful pursuit of their own goals.
With the kerosene light flickering nearby I continue to sit, as a man
on a dry sofa, while the world of vegetation all about is rejoicing as
one in the rain for which it has waited. It saddens me, to think
of returning to the similar enclosure I have built among others of my own
kind in the city, diverting the life-giving flow of their expression and
interaction out of a sense that I shall be undermined and washed away.
RB
23 May 1999 -- A temporary rest from ongoing
burden
I finally get to let myself fall into the heap that I so often
do when I've been able to escape grueling stretches of city activity and
come to the Cabin. I worry a lot when I get one task scheduled directly
after another in a long string, since I have so little time to think of
what I'm doing before I do it. I like to see my work laid before
me, in an operational plan, which I then execute at a well-defined "D-hour"
when it has the most chance of succeeding. But living within the
constraints of others' schedules does not allow my own preferences
to play much part in many of my assignments. The 168 hours of the
week are portioned out by the collective into a tight framework of characterized
time-slots. I feel myself dashing along a circuitous obstacle course
to make it through each window for the brief time it is open.
This is the beauty of life alone in a personal dwelling; I need not
coordinate times with it; it is mine to use when I want. My city
home comes close to this ideal, but it is still too "connected", having
its wired-in share of reminders and prompts to take action on outstanding
obligations. Here at the Cabin, as I let my weight sink into the
soft bedding of my bunk, I have a chance to lighten my load, if only for
a temporary spell. The sad part is that all of the jettisoned cargo
is right where I left it prior to heading up the dirt track. As in the
famous JFK oration, I hesitate to ask what my country (or society; economy)
can do for me, since I know it will bill me later for a long list of things
I will be required to do for it. Such debt overhang is not to my
liking, but it is hard at times to "just say no" when an enticing convenience
is placed before me for the taking, on terms I that I can settle on another
day.
Today it is rather warm, near 80 F, and still damp outside from the
rains that came through. I suppose I would enjoy having air
conditioning right now, as I begin to sweat in my street clothes on top
of the ripstop shell of my bed's topcover. I get up and change to
my lightweight nylon shorts and polyester/acrylic T-shirt, since I have
the privilege of "dressing down" at this moment. Naturally, I wear
no shoes. I am not trying to get a host to serve me in a restaurant
that has to observe sanitation, and there is no broken glass in the dooryard.
Only my feet ever touch the soft, sanded-down surface of the wood
plank floorboards.
I fall back into the bunk and begin one of those techniques of "relaxation"
I learned some time back. This is the one of methodically dropping
all the tension from each part of the voluntary musculature, while practicing
abdominal breathing. I listen to the sounds of birds and insects
all about and the river's soft, unbroken roar in the distance. I
am glad, for the moment, to have severed my access to those duties awaiting
me after I drive back out through the gate, get on the Main Road, and return
to real life. More importantly, I do not have the others around to
dangle still more invitations in front of me, for they certainly look
inviting when I first see them.
I start to think, as my mind drifts off into the woodland calm, that
maybe the intended way of human life is indeed one of continuous activity.
Perhaps there is a vital quality to works done in spontaneity, and my need
to have a timetable laid out in advance just causes worry that I do not
need. One day, I'll trust my reflexes enough to live closer to the
present moment, with less prior introspection. Today, however, I
have been through far too many harrowing episodes. I do not yet have
the confidence that, though my life will present many trials, the Lord
knows "just how much I can bear" and will get me past them all.
RB
26 May 1999 -- Straining to hear my next assignment
I sit on the front porch in my creaking old metal chair, in the still
air of a summer that is nearly born. The sun has risen high enough
that the porch roof now casts a nominal shadow over my face. I no
longer need to squint and look away from the clearing and ridge-slopes
to the northeast. This part of the month of May has in it the same
anticipation of seasonal change I remember from early March, when the first
hints of spring began to appear. Millions of Americans down in the
populated areas are preparing for their re-entry into the world of leisure
with the Memorial Day weekend. Why they pack into their vehicles
and leave one congested crowd to join another, as with the popular Atlantic
resort towns, is beyond me. I can only conclude that they are not
trying to escape people as a general rule--only people who are forced to
behave as they do in urban competition.
I must admit that I have had fond memories of certain communal
getaways. Although being pushed along through an itinerary by a tour
operator or a special event schedule seems a cause for rebellion, I usually
walk away with something of a satisfied feeling when I am released to the
hotel room in the evening. It is almost like coming home from a hard
yet productive day at work. When unencumbered time grows scarce,
the laws of supply and demand naturally drive up its intrinsic value per
hour. Still, that is no reason in my mind for loading up indiscriminately
on activity, just for activity's sake. I therefore find myself with
time on my hands and no strict budgetary guidelines for its allocation.
Maybe I need to be still and listen to what I am saying from the inside.
Somewhere in my processes of thought, conscious or otherwise, I am sure
to have an audible sense of what to do. That technique so rarely
works, though--I just end up hearing a lot of noise and no signal.
It is watching a pot that does not boil and a butterfly that does not come
to land. If anything, what I occasionally hear, way down there in
the static, is a message that tells me to stay true to whatever central
integrity and clarifying conviction I can possibly find. I probably
have enough of this from early family and church life to form a basic plan.
This should ideally create an algorithm of arbitration between various
pursuits, whose priorities are defined within that structural core. I should
think that the more "typical" person in the urban aggregate picks up these
directives more readily than I do. It must be a life of both sheer
terror and untold joy to live according to that louder voice, which cannot
be debated--only obeyed.
As I gaze out upon the granite boulders, assorted scrub bushes, wild
grass and floating dandelion seeds, I am reminded of why it is that I have
come to have life at all--I am here because of the others. I cannot
disregard the group that includes me without disregarding myself.
There are things I could be doing for them, right now, if I only knew what
they were. But to have such discernment in its pure form would be
tantamount to eating the forbidden fruit, for then I would never be mistaken
in my actions or thoughts. I will soon climb back into the
truck and return, to work on something, even if it's wrong and
I only get the consolation prize of learning from my mistakes. Such
is the nature of the "normal" population, which has sufficient divinity
to forgive so many of my human errors.
RB
31 May 1999 -- Comfortably gazing upon the
entire forest
Today just seems to be another of those days for sitting out on the
porch, accepting things here for how they are. That can be a difficult
discipline in my real life, where the temptations of other work are all
about. I need to pack my mind's self into the truck and drive up
the dirt road, doing my best to dispel such distractions. I still
wish I had a greater appreciation of the diversity of plant and animal
species that live in a hollow like this. Most times I come to visit,
it is good enough that they are there at all, even if I don't know them
on a more individual, "personal" level. I often tend to see a "good
/ evil", "light / darkness" distinction between the anonymous wildlife
that has its best effect in the aggregate and the crowd of anonymous humans
I must make my way around in the city. The woods are not the
city, and that's what counts.
Maybe this is a problem with the essential "workings" of my mind.
All those years of training in analytical techniques and methods of abstract
consideration might have put me in a habit of viewing every setting according
to some oversimplified model. I suspect there are certain uses for
statistical or macroscopic representations of complex systems like the
woods or a human society, but the moment they form the foundation of value
judgments and personal condemnation of individuals, then I know I am guilty
of grievous wrong. I begin to sound like the sheep in Orwell's Animal
Farm, as they bleat out, "two legs bad, four legs good".
But I cannot deny that it is a "beautiful" scene, at least in terms
of my own aesthetic measurements, when I gaze out across the grassy scrub
of the clearing, with just the tree-line and the ridge in the distance.
To look out the front of a typical urban dwelling, on the other hand, is
to take in asphalt, automobiles, and people wondering why I'm staring at
them. Maybe the ones who are successful in urban life do not spend
long idly contemplating their rather unremarkable physical surroundings.
Rather, they are socially active in so many ways that it doesn't really
matter--their human landscape has perceptible texture and character,
full of faces they know, which represent the relationships they have nurtured.
I sigh one of my typical "what's the use?" sighs, and look out some
more, as the sun starts passing behind the Cabin and the shadows start
to lengthen. I just cannot help preferring this faceless world to
the other one that is my reality. Maybe it's time to stop fighting
it. They'll probably continue making a place for me, so long as I
go to work. But then, I am inevitably expected
to hold to schedules of additional "fun" events and make all the meetings,
so that I am recognized when I show up. At times, this is nothing
more than another job. I know, however, that to say something like
that is a fine example of one of those oversimplifications. Work,
after all, has a formal definition of hard effort--that's why they call
it "work". Those social gatherings, on the other hand, do not exact
predefined contribution or completion. A "party" is supposed to encourage
free expression and impromptu behavior, all of which is usually accepted
by the others if they are good enough friends. But the uncertainty
of where such expression and behavior could lead is something I find to
be fearsome.
I think of the irony of my situation, where I see more certainty in
these woods out here than I do among conventional groups of fellow humans.
The typical scenario on the frontier was just the opposite--people knew
certainty in each other but feared what was outside their camp. Sometimes
I see myself as far too sensitive to what I perceive in others, as they
exert their influences upon me. I imagine myself being driven wildly
out of control where the typical person would shrug it off. Well,
I suppose those "faceless" ones actually have rather distinctive and memorable
faces after all, if that's what they can do to me.
RB
Ahead to June 1999
