Date: 2013-11-17
To: Mindset
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

A few things have been going through my head as I ponder the forthcoming experience. The biggest thing is the great question of "Why?" I really don't know. It's certainly something good for body, mind and soul. It's a unique experience that comes not even once per lifetime. It's an incredible experience of adventure and survival. It's... I don't know why. I really don't.In Stephen King's novel The Stand, he introduced me to the idea that walking can be used as a form of spiritual ablution. The heavy-handedness of the symbolism was one of the weaker points in the novel, but it nonetheless struck me. I like to view the spiritual world as manifesting itself from symbols. If you do something symbolically, it is mirrored in one's character. If I walk for a symbolic cleansing, my inner-being will shed a little more light than it used to. Of course I haven't put this speculative jibber-jabber through any test yet, but walking twenty miles nearly every day for four months certainly will. This should be an interesting point to follow.Not to make a post of naught but literary references, but Calvin's dad from Calvin and Hobbes had always tried to convince Calvin (and the more sensible reader, I'm sure) that miserable conditions and overcoming difficulties builds character. After spending time as a grunt in the Marine Corps, I'm all but certain of this concept's validity as long as the mind is set correctly. Even if everything I've heard about the Trail is false, I know that misery and hardship will occur. I can therefore safely conclude I step off Mt. Katahdin as a better person.I love the idea of the Vision Quest. Young First Nations Brave goes into the wilderness and doesn't return until his mind ascends reality and he receives not only spiritual guidance directly from nature about his path within this world, but the path within his internal realm. There are some similarities between what I'm to accomplish and what Young Brave accomplishes. I will be in a "between" stage of my life; I will be a young (sort of) man searching for himself and his part to play on this giant stage; I will be spending a great deal of time communing with nature--Side note: If you see some dude with red hair making animal sounds and not-so-socially acceptable body movements towards something unseen in the woods, it may be me--and I will be actively seeking different levels of consciousness as I progress.Akin in some respects to the Vision Quest was the goings-on of the wandering journeyman from Europe. Between apprenticeship and master-craftsmanship was the journeymanship. In order for many journeymen to even apply for a master's title, their trade guild would require them to travel from town to town and city to city in order to learn different styles, and therefore become more well-rounded. Obviously, this is not Pre-Industrialist society, so the wandering journeyman is all but extinct; and for all the writing and artisanship I'll perform on the Trail, I'll still be an amateur; but that doesn't take away from the romance of such a sojourn. Many personal heroes of mine have undergone such as this, so I suppose this is simply more subconscious symbolism. If I do as Gustav Mahler did, perhaps I will become such as he.Anyways, I wish I could give a more concrete answer to the question of "Why?" I just understand that this path will be both transformative and transcendent. I understand I will leave it as a better person. What more could I ask for?"I've been thinking Hobbes--""On a weekend?""Well it wasn't on purpose..."-Calvin and Hobbes