Silence, the desert, and an apology to Edward Abbey

This post is composed of two journal entries and some current thoughts.

March 2015:
"The smell of manure spread on fields
Will always, always remind me of home
Spring peepers singing from dusk 'til dawn
Silent night, holy night

I am about to leave this behind
These sacred moments become all the more so
Ah! But the earth has more to offer!
Soon I shall discover the sacred places of the deserts and mountains
The wild places of solitude
The great silence of sand and stone
Silent night, holy night"

-

At the time I wrote this, I had just recently read "Desert Solitaire" by Edward Abbey. He spent several years as a park ranger at Arches National Park in Utah. He loved the place, and wished for people to experience it, but on its own terms. It was a hard place to spend time in back then: few amenities, difficult dirt roads, and far from much civilization. He fought the Park Service as best he could to keep them from making it easily accessible. One of his greatest fears was that someday you could drive through the park and see everything without even leaving your car.

This summer, a bunch of my co-workers organized a weekend trip to that same park, among other places. I initially expressed my concern that we wouldn't be able to spend enough time in each place in one weekend, and I was told, "Oh, it's ok, we can drive all the way through Arches and it only takes an hour and a half!"

Oh Edward, what have we done!

I admit I was a bit of a downer while we were in the park, as it truly hurt me to see all the things he feared had come to pass. Even some of my best friends were confused by my actions.

"You're reading a book about wilderness right now, why aren't you coming out here to enjoy this?"

Well, it's no longer wilderness when you can drive right up to the damned rock.

Here is the journal entry I wrote in the park:

7-26-15, Arches:
"For a while I felt as though Edward Abbey understood me. Being here at Arches, I finally understand him. There is no wilderness here. You can drive anywhere you want to go, and see everything without leaving the car. His worst fears confirmed. There's barely a difference between such a drive and staring at a painting (or even worse, glossing over someone's Facebook pictures!).

I almost had a moment of real silence today. I told a couple of others if we stopped talking, it would be one of the few moments in life where everything could be truly, truly silent. They laughed at me as if I was joking. It wasn't hurtful, but it was eye-opening.

Through these things, I'm also starting to understand Thoreau a bit better."

-

Silence and true wilderness are things I am starting to really embrace, and the more I do, the more I have realized how very little of them exist in our world today. I can't even climb a mountain in the heart of a designated wilderness area without hearing airplanes pass overhead. True wilderness is not something you can drive to, and it's not something you can be entertained with for a moment and then leave behind quickly. The Wilderness Act of 1964 actually has a beautiful definition:

"A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."

It doesn't stop there, but I'll let you go read it yourself if you want a better idea.

I urge you to enjoy the silence you can get. Get away from the sounds of computers humming, fans whirring, televisions blaring, and find a true moment of silence. Sunrise is a wonderful silence when you can find it, sunset as well. Find a park and spend some time there and listen for silence. It is beautiful, but usually brief.

I'm starting to get preachy. I'll leave you with this quote from Abbey:

"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds."

Peace.

Solitude

So, not quite in contrast to my last post, but rather in spite of it, I have been feeling rather solitary since getting back from Idaho. We did not spend very much time around groups of people; it was really just Taylor, myself, and the farm owners most of the time. This probably had an effect on me. Fortunately, one result of this has been an increase in reading, which is great. I did not read for pleasure all through college, and it has taken some time for me to get back into the habit even after graduating. Since I have not spent much time around groups of people, I have also had a lot more time to think to myself. Being a natural introvert, all of this has been wonderful for me.

At the same time, it has felt a little strange. I have felt less inclined to take part in social situations. I suppose you could say I have been "peopled out." One-on-one time with friends has always appealed to me more, but now even more so than before. I do not think it is a bad thing, just a slight change.

I am still reading through some works of Thoreau, and probably will continue for some time. So far, he has really hit home in me with a lot of his ideas about nature and life. He strongly thinks that what happens to a man in nature can almost never be bad. Mosquitoes, cold weather, damp clothes...he practically embraces these experiences. The crazy part is...I feel similarly. We think that warmth and little work are the best ways to live; I would rather say many "comforts" keep us from actually living. To me, the wind howling through the treetops is a better comfort than the air conditioner on a hot day; a walk in the rain better than reclining on a couch; sleeping on the ground better than in a bed; the bite of a mosquito better than spending my days protected from the world; soggy shoes better than feet which are only used to go to work and back.

"Cold and damp are as rich experiences as warmth and dryness." ~ Thoreau

When you remove the mindset of "cold and damp are bad things and must be avoided at all costs," it really changes how you live. You become less afraid of "uncomfortable" experiences, and even begin to embrace them. Not only are those things full of their own richness of experience (strange as that may seem to some), but they serve to magnify the experiences we normally seek out. Sitting in front of a fire reading a book is infinitely more enjoyable and relaxing after a hard day's work in the field with wet shoes, for example. Changing my perspective on comfort was a very important moment for me, and it is continually helping me to live life more fully.

Peace.