Date: 2015-11-04
To: AWOL
Miles today: 0.0

About two years ago, I read "AWOL on the Appalachian Trail" by David AWOL Miller, which I highly recommend by the way. I remember reading the first two pages of Chapter 8 and immediately knowing that I needed to hike the Appalachian Trail: ¢Doc and Llama are on their second thru-hike of the AT. They did the PCT the same year as Ken and Marcia. They are in a small sect of thru-hikers that could be dubbed ¢career hikers.¢ During the off-season, Doc does landscape work and Llama waits tables. These aren¢t jobs with ¢a future¢; they¢re jobs that will fund their next adventure.People living normal lives are ruffled by folks like Doc and Llama. Nonconformity is an affront to those in the mainstream. Our impulse is to dismiss this lifestyle, create reasons why it can¢t work, why it doesn¢t even warrant consideration. Why not? Living outdoors is cheap and can be afforded by a half year of marginal employment. They can¢t buy things that most of us have, but what they lose in possessions, they gain in freedom.In Somerset Maugham¢s The Razor¢s Edge, lead character Larry returns from the First World War and declares that he would like to ¢loaf.¢ The term ¢loafing¢ inadequately describes the life he would spend traveling, studying, searching for meaning, and even laboring. Larry meets with the disapproval of peers and would be mentors: "Common sense assured...that if you wanted to get on in this world, you must accept its conventions, and not to do what everybody else did clearly pointed to instability."Larry had an inheritance that enabled him to live modestly and pursue his dreams. Larry's acquaintances didn't fear the consequences of his failure; they feared his failure to conform. I'm no maverick. Upon leaving college I dove into the workforce, eager to have my own stuff and a job to pay for it. Parents approved, bosses gave raises, and my friends could relate. The approval, the comforts, the commitments wound themselves around me like invisible threads. When my life stayed the course, I wouldn't even feel them binding. Then I would waiver enough to sense the growing entrapment, the taming of my life in which I had been complicit. Working a nine-to-five job took more energy than I had expected, leaving less time to pursue diverse interests. I grew to detest the statement "I am a..." with the sentence completed by an occupational title. Self-help books emphasize "defining priorities" and staying focused", euphemisms for specialization and stifling spontaneity. Our vision becomes so narrow that risk is trying a new brand of cereal, and adventure is watching a new sitcom. Over time I have elevated my opinion of nonconformity nearly to the level of an obligation. We should have a bias toward doing activities that we don't normally do to keep loose the moorings of society. Hiking the AT is "pointless". What life is not "pointless"? Is it not pointless to work paycheck to paycheck just to conform? Hiking the AT before joining the workforce was an opportunity not taken. Doing it in retirement would be sensible; doing it at this time in my life is abnormal, and therein lay the appeal. I want to make my life less ordinary."I could not have said any of that better myself and I think that's why it had such an impact on me. That passage alone was enough to push me onto this path and I'm loving every second of it. Thanks AWOL.