Wilderness a necessary ingredient for perspective...at least for this guy!
Since anyone who reads this is likely a pretty smart guy or gal, politics are probably making you a little nauseous right now. Not much more I am gonna say about the dirtiest of the "P" words here, but I was thinking this morning as I caught bits and pieces of the R- Convention that I am really happy I have one more expedition to the wilderness before my real job as a teacher gets going again in August.
There is never a time when upon my return from such a trip, this one to Colorado, that I don't come back thinking that all the stupid stuff I deal with day-to-day really isn't very important. The time I have in wilderness helps me be a better person and relate more genuinely with those whom I care about - family, friends, co-workers. I always think, man, I am not going back to that way of thinking...and it always creeps back - no matter how hard I try. Maybe next time!
But even if I do go back to the "stupid stuff," at least for the time I am away and for some time thereafter, I am better. Way better.
John Muir, conservationist, hunter, fisherman...once said, "Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity." He could not have better reflected my thinking in his statement. Some of us know we need it and some of us will discover we need it and some will pass from this earth sadly never having known the release offered in wild places.
Here is a personal aspiration...I will live in the moment fully but consciously always keep the wilderness and what it represents, along with my faith, as a guiding force in those moments.
