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[pct-l] re: trail blues



Howdy, all,

I've never done a thruhike, though I have spent a lot of time outdoors...
here's an abbreviated tale of "how I beat the blues:''

When I was younger, it was frustrating to me that I could spend no more than
a week or two out in the mountains or on the trail without getting depressed
and ready to quit and get back to "civilization."  I had an insight, on one
particularly lengthy trip, that I was depressed because I couldn't accept
myself, couldn't face the "mirror" that seemed to be there after several
days out...

To put it simply, what was reflected in the "mirror" was me in all my
metaphysical "dirtiness:" my self-disgust and self-hate, the questionable
things I'd done but not yet answered for, all the difficulties that I had
just in living life.  After that, I had to walk in the mountains a long time
and slowly come to realize that my experience of life would always include
mistakes.  I had to not only release myself from the deathgrip of self-hate,
but I had to release everyone else that I'd held in my mind all those years
for all those "wrongs," imagined and otherwise.

I'm not implying that anyone on this list was, is, or ever will be, as
screwed up as all that.  But I was, and it was long periods of time out in
the wilds that opened me up so that I could "see" something inside that was
closing me off to the real joys of life, and they are, for me, love of
family and friends and love of wild places.  That was twenty years ago.

Sometimes a long walk spanning much time, in the wild places that we love,
lets us see a thing here or there that enhances our ability to "do" life
better.  Maybe it's the alpenglow, or the sweat after a long, grueling
uphill stretch, or that little eye that seems to keep probing around inside
when the physical eyes are focused on physical things.

In pleasant anticipation of the next backpack trip, and of the time when I
will, finally, get to walk the PCT.

Craig Smith
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