Date: 2004-12-31
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Miles today: 0.0

As the time for departure draws closer (72 days and counting), my preparations have intensified. In addition to route planning and mail drops, decisions on gear and plans for getting in shape, my mind keeps wanting to return to those nagging little questions that I've put off writing about -- until now: what is it, exactly, that I'm trying to do here? Why really am I going? What do I hope and expect to get out of it? And what might it do to me?   On this last day of the old year, and approaching the last days of the old me, I've decided to lay out the ideas I have on these questions and see what they look like in black and white. Here goes...What's it all about, Alphie? Life, I mean. I tried to answer that question some years ago, during my mid-life crisis period, stuggling to make sense of it all. I came up with a conceptual framework that worked for me then, and has stood the test of time. I call it the Basic Life Processes Model, and I use it every now and again as part of a reality check -- when things are tough, or a bit out of wack. Ok, let's review here. What are the basic life processes and how am I doing in each of the four key areas.   I use circles when I draw it out on paper, three larger circles arranged in a triangle around a central circle -- each representing one of four basic life processes: Having; Doing; Caring; and (the central process)Being. Each of these processes have three elements (due in part, I suppose, to my innate sense of order and symetry, but they also makes sense that way). The process of "having" is meant in the materialistic sense, incorporating two of life's most unavoidable realities: the physical reality of man's need for food, water, and shelter, and the economic reality of there being no free lunch. The three elements are: Basic needs -- those things that homeless people (and backpackers) strive to satisfy; Additional reasonable wants -- for most of us, more than a simple roof over our head and bus fare -- a NICE home, and a car, and decent clothes, etc., etc., etc.; and Dreams and Wishes -- those things that go well beyond additional reasonable wants, the ideal possessions. Lots of things can go on here that upset the symetry and balance of the other life processess if you're not careful. The more things you want, for example, the more money you have to earn, the harder you have to work, and the less time you have for anything OTHER than work, work, work. The process of "doing" also has three parts -- working, learning and playing. The working part is all too easy to grasp for those of us with responsibilities -- whether its working for pay outside the home or the really hard stuff like raising kids for a living. Learning is something we all had to do at school, and playing, well, that's assumed to be the fun part, right? The part we don't do much of any more now that we've got responsibilities. Someone once referred to these as "the boxes of life", and the unstated assumption is that you spend whole parts of your life doing one of them primarily, and then graduate to the next box: first, as a student, you're expected to learn; then you work for 35-40 years to earn a living and, hopefully, a pension; and then, when you retire, you finally get to go outside and play again like you did when you were a child. Here also are some obvious challenges of balance. Another of those annoying realities, for example, is that life-long learning may be critical for continued employment, especially with the pace of obsolescene today. And playing is NOT just for kids. Think of it as recreation, and break it down -- its about re-creation. Getting us refreshed enough that we can go back to work not just with renewed energy, but with excitment and with new ideas. The process of caring is pretty basic, but the focus needs to be both internal and external -- its about caring for our appropriate others (however we define them, and they don't actually have to be family and friends, or even people), but equally important, its about caring for ourselves. First. Because it turns out that we can't really care for other people if we don't take enough care of ourselves. The three elements of the caring process are: understanding -- first, know thyself, or your appropriate other; acceptance -- which obviously can't work if you haven't realy gotten to know yourself or your appropriate other very well; and finally, helping yourself, or your appropriate other, to grow -- to become, as the army slogan aptly puts it "all that you can be". Or more to the point, all that you, or that appropriate other, really want to become. It's important to distinguish here between caring for someone and taking care of them, which is not the same thing. In terms of the dynamics of this model, it should be fairly clear by now that the basic processes all interact with each other, for better or worse. The more you (or others around you) need to HAVE, the more you have to work to get it, and the less time you have for leaning, playing/recreation, or caring -- for yourself or others.Finally, what I call the "core process" -- being. Not in the existential sense, but in terms of three key concepts: identity -- "who am I";" values -- "what really matters?"; and direction -- "Where am I going with my life?" These are those questions you get to ask yourself when the processess going on in the outter three circles seem to be falling apart, and life is getting seriously out of wack, and you really have to get back to the basics. And regardless of what you may like to THINK are the answers to those "being" questions, the realities are being played out in the outer circles. So, that's the model. And I'm using it now to figure out how this whole AT Hike thing fits in. My plan is to take one circle at a time, and figure out how the hike relates to it, and to me. I've got a few ideas already, and I think it's going to work. At worst, it should become clearer to me as I go through the process what the answers are to those questions I noted above. I'm especially interested in what it's going to do with the Being process, including where I will be going next with my life when the hike is done.stay tuned!