Date: 2014-02-11
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

In reference to the quote I have at the beginning of my third journal entry, the one about the road being your goal in life and that there is no end destination, I would like to clarify something. If I could transplant my current self into who I was in college, I would still stay in school to the finish. I would do it all over again but, I would have had a lot more fun and enjoyment. The problem was that I let the "following of the goal" distract me from what could have easily been the greatest time of my life.If I were enlightened in some kind of ideal hippyish way, every present moment and the next coming moment would thus also become the greatest time of my life. The way I interpreted the meaning of those words was that we focus too much on reaching end goals. It can produce a very short sighted mentality that doesn't allow us to appreciate the now as if what's coming next is far more important. It may very well be far more important, but why wouldn't you make the best of the present moment you're in right now? The future hasn't happened yet and as far as I'm concerned, it's non existent. That doesn't mean drop everything you're doing right now and party. Just think about that saying of having 99 problems. What is it? That 86 of them aren't real? There's a great clip on youtube called "Music and Life" created by the makers of South Park to the voice of the American philosopher Alan Watts. He paints a good picture of what many of us do with our lives (unfortunately) as we forget to make the best of the here and now. Another thing to consider would be how reaching that end goal can very easily be not what you expected. It could be anticlimactic and disappointing. I can't help but think about my high school graduation. It wasn't even a festive event - sitting in black graduation gowns under a 95 degree sun for 3 hours. All high school did in that regard was produce a class of 400 seniors with a case of mass swamp ass. Your welcome class of SDHS 08, you rented $110 worth of graduation apparel nonsense that was saturated with 2007's butt perspiration.I'll be keeping this in mind as I take on the Appalachian Trail. Mt. Katahdin is just an intended way point in my goal of constant self improvement. Katahdin is not the true goal. Perhaps there will be post-hiker blues or a similar experience of that "what now?" feeling after you finish school. The difference will be I now have a clear mission statement that has been simplified to its bare essence. It will forever be my driving force of why I rise every morning. To constantly grow, experience, improve, and evolve my own self. But this takes a lot more discipline than one would initially expect. So I will try my best to see it through all the way.Now in regards to making the Appalachian Trail my own personal rite of passage... I'm making it so because I believe some kind of rite of passage is important for development. Some people may have quinceaneras, Bar Mitzvahs, sweet 16s, and that shit show of turning 21 but what is that really besides a glorified birthday? (I am ignorant of the true significance of Bar Mitzvahs though so my apologies if I wasn't spot on about that being just another excuse to yell Mazel tov.) I just don't like it when things are given to you and you didn't have to do anything for it to happen.Just think of Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan whenever you are given something and let the agonal whisper of "eaaaarrrnnnnn thiiiissssss" plague your consciousness. In fact, I'm going to make a strangely weird request of the trail angels I may encounter. I want them to pull me close and whisper in my ear "earn this" so I can pretend a team of American GI's died just so I can have that moment of trail magic. If that doesn't further motivate me to finish the thru hike, than I can't call myself a patriot. I just hope I don't have to picture Sgt. Horvath dying every time I eat a skittle. Everyone has their limits in which you repeat a scenario in your head enough times and you really start believing you're the reason Tom Hanks had to put a man in the bell tower to get blown up. Damn it Tom Hanks. Why didn't you just go home.Now... again about that rite of passage. I'm thinking along the lines like that Native American tradition of a spiritual quest. Or the ancient Spartans and their agoge. Well not that extreme or intense, but something challenging that will clearly define a transition from one moment in life to another. Getting a driver's license or jumping out of an airplane for my 21st was relatively instantaneous, easy, and hardly introspective. I'm not saying we all need to go out and do something ridiculous in order to call yourself a man or a woman. I just think there's a lack of a trial that clearly shows a minimum amount of human potential or a trial that inspires you to be a better human. That kind of trial needs to test your mind, body, and soul. It needs to take endurance, will power, and motivation.Obvious modern examples would be perhaps joining the military. You can't deny earning that Army Ranger tab, for example, is not a rite of passage. Not everyone can do it but I'm not looking to be a soldier. I also have to give my respects to people who make something out of themselves through higher education. It's not easy. All I know is that it doesn't appeal to me. Also ringing in the back of my head are more words from Alan Watts,¢when a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique. He is universal by virtue of the inseparability of his organism from the cosmos. He is unique in that he is just this organism and not any stereotype of role, class, or identity assumed for the convenience of social communication.¢I think that's it. I'm not doing the Appalachian Trail to call myself a thru hiker. Nor am I doing it so people can categorize what kind of person I am. No single person does this hike exactly the same way. Those on the Appalachian Trail come from diverse places, have different reasons, and different meanings.HYOH... beautiful.