[pct-l] Tethers to the other world...

[aslive at charter.net]

Jeff

What a wonderful way of putting it, that feeling of freedom on the 
trail.  Perhaps we should change your trail name to "Tetherless".  I 
have long said that cell phones, etc., are nothing more than electronic 
leashes and I want to run free.  After all isn't that what the trail is 
all about?

Shepherd


On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 7:04 PM, Jeffrey Olson wrote:

> 17 years ago when the listserv started there was no discussion about 
> how to communicate with the "other world" while on the trail.
>
> The trail has its own reality.  It now takes me just a couple weeks to 
> shift from being social to being single.  That's what it is for me. 
> Suddenly, in the first hour, I'm alone, and I can project forward and 
> know I'm going to be alone for three weeks, six weeks, a couple months 
> or five months...   Five or six hikes of 10 days to seven weeks - I 
> know this in the first moments.
>
> There is a couple minutes of elation being away from the car and 
> walking away from it all.  Then there's the first glance into space 
> across the canyon to the granite spires beyond.
>
> Increasingly the larger spaces come to be THE environment.  You can 
> hide in a copse of trees or make sure you camp at 8000'.  Naps in the 
> afternoon shade chase the bigness away.
>
> Day after day you open up on big spaces.  Increasingly these big 
> spaces are internal.  When you cross the head of a drainage and cross 
> the springs that eventually become the Colorado or Green or San 
> Joaquin, you check in.  The long gaze down the basin across the 
> flattening forest is there every time you look.  The "tether" to the 
> "other world" is thinning.
>
> You feel an increasing sense of competence, and this competence is 
> based in choices you make moment to moment as you walk along the 
> trail.  Week after week you find yourself tested and your choices bear 
> good outcomes.
>
> You abandon gear or trade for or buy more minimalist gear.  Your body 
> hardens and while you can walk 25 miles a day, you can no longer jump 
> vertically more than a couple inches.  If you don't watch it, that 
> lasts a long time.
>
> Each moment of each day surrounds us as we walk.  The presence of one 
> foot in front of the other opens up new vistas in the big spaces. 
> Emotions tarnish and churl.  Not enough water, or food, or sleep - all 
> are part of the blossoming, unfolding, magnetic call of what's ahead.
>
> If you can let go of the tethers - others needs to feel you're safe - 
> and just leave - just head out!!!  Sure you love you Mom and 
> girlfriend or boyfriend, and maybe your dad...
>
> Just head out.  If you die - well, you die.  That's part of untying 
> the knots that are other's worlds wanting to control our own!  You 
> learn to trust yourself, your ability to make good decisions in the 
> moment, whether from ethics, or evaluation of personal safety.
>
> I think we're in an historical era that doesn't want us to carve our 
> own lives.  The opportunities that exist for us in the world of work 
> are pretty dull and mundane and predictable.  Whether straight or gay 
> - marriage is important to others.  The tethers hold us back, are 
> visible in the emotions - in the fear of stepping away from the 
> comfortable and known.
>
> Can you imagine just hitching to Campo, or Horseshoe Meadows, or Hwy 
> 50 or White Pass and heading out - feeling, but not knowing you'll not 
> only survive but thrive?
>
> Hiking a long trail enables one to step out of one life into another 
> over the course of a day or two.  Suddenly, you're on the trail.
>
> No one knows when you're going to be anywhere when.  You told them you 
> would contact them at your convenience, and their worry was no 
> business of yours.  You are stepping into a new reality, from one, 
> into another, from the past into a future you've crafted in your 
> planning.  The pleadings of loved ones that they'll worry about you 
> distance themselves into echos that slowly diminish and disappear. 
> You're on the trail!!!
>
> You fully understand the risks involved and trust in your ability to 
> learn quickly enough how to make good decisions, to use experience to 
> deepen wisdom.  You can say this to your folks or loved ones, and to 
> yourself.  All feel a bit, or a lot, of uncertainty.  Especially 
> Moms...
>
> The bottom line is a person literally steps from one life into 
> another.  There just aren't many opportunities like this in modern 
> living.  You can maintain contact with the "other world" if you want, 
> but why would you???
>
> Jeffrey Olson
> Rapid City, SD
>
>
>
>
>
>
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