[pct-l] Post Trail Adjustment - a reply

[pmags at yahoo.com (Paul Magnanti)]

Another reply I am going to keep anon. Though this
person's reply had some interesting replies; too good
to not share.

> Interesting to quote Lewis & Clark - one of them
> committed suicide 
> in later years.

Actually,   I quoted Lewis. not Lewis *AND* Clark. :-)

Lewis' family suffered from "depressions". Many
historians suspect it was a genetic condition.
Jefferson even made similar comments.

Clark on the other hand (along with Patrick Gass,
whose journal is less well known..but more blunt!),
prospered.  

> 
> Nothing else he could ever do could recapture that
> excitement, I guess.
>
See above. Modern medicine probably would have cured
Lewis' family's condition. Don't think it had to do
with the journey. And, again, Clark did quite well
afterwards. Gass to a lesser extent. The other men who
were often quoted int journals are  pretty much lost
to history.
 
> common observation of an enormous letdown afterward,
> both on "recreational"
> hikes like the national scenic trails, and also on
> "spiritual" pilgrimages
> like the Camino de Santiago.      You might think
> these two activities are
> vastly different, but they are more alike than
> different.
> 

Oh, I agree. The so-called "recreational hikes" are
pilgrimages of a different sort.  My sojurns in the
wilderness are wilderness pilgrimages. Not so
different from Camindo de Santiago. When I went to
Italy, I considered it a pilgrimage as well. I did not
walk, but I did explore. Exlored my roots, met my
distant relations, saw where Pop fought in WW2 for the
American army. Was I depressed when I went to Italy?

Many marathoners also get a letdown as well. Are they
clinically depressed? 

Anytime you do an intense activity with a goal, then
it ends, you tend to have the same feeling. A goal has
been achieved..now what? Part of it is indeed
physiological. Your body is addicted to the
endorphins. But, as mentioned, a large part is mental.
Adjusting to the "real world' after such an
achivement.

"It is always there, of course, when you come back
from the green world. You have been living by sunrise
and sunset, by wind and rain, surrounded by the  ebb
and flow of lives that respond only to such simple,
rhythmic elements.  But now the tone and tempo of the
days switch. Instead of harmony, jangle." --Colin
Fletcher, WINDS OF MARA

> When I get home in a few days I'll write more on
> this for PCT-L.
> 

I look forward to it! Could make for a great
discussion.

Anyone else have any comments on this thread besides
Person X and myself?


************************************************************
The true harvest of my life is intangible.... a little stardust 
caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched
--Thoreau
http://www.magnanti.com