[pct-l] goals

[TOKTAADN@aol.com (TOKTAADN@aol.com)]

Being a voracious reader, coincidences frequently occur where a book I'm 
reading contains insight into a hiking related thread current on the List.  
Understand that I am not offering this quote as my own opinion, rather to 
share something I found thought provoking.  From Joseph Conrad:

"Consciously or unconsciously, men are proud of their firmness, steadfastness 
of purpose, directness of aim.  They go straight toward their desire, to the 
accomplishment of virtue -- sometimes of crime -- in an uplifting persuasion 
of their firmness.  They walk the road of life, the road fenced in by their 
tastes, prejudices, disdains or enthusiasms, generally honest, invariably 
stupid, and are proud of never losing their way.  If they do stop, it is to 
look for a moment over the hedges that make them safe, to look at the misty 
valleys, at the distant peaks, at cliffs and morasses, at the dark forests 
and hazy plains where other human beings grope their days painfully away, 
stumbling over the bones of the wise, over the unburied remains of their 
predecessors who died alone, in gloom or in sunshine, half way from anywhere. 
 The man of purpose does not understand, and goes on, full of contempt.  He 
never loses his way.  He knows where he is going and what he wants.  
Traveling on, he achieves great length without any breadth, and battered, 
besmirched, and weary, he touches his goal at last; he grasps the reward of 
his perseverance, of his virtue, of his healthy optimism; an untruthful 
tombstone over a dark and soon forgotten grave."

I hope this inspires some thought and reflection, as it did for me.

Happy trails,

Solar Bear