Now, back in receptionland, being gone at least a week, I feel compelled to say something, though I was enjoying simple engagement in the journey/a sort of peace, which writing may interfere with. But I am compelled.
For a while I just ate, generally too much, of the free hiker food you don't need to cook (the free food at Muir Trail Ranch was as unbelievable as before--buckets full of Pro, Cliff, & Peaceworks bars, Gu, etc), and re(a)d, mostly Pynchon. More recently I got into roaded areas, primarily because of a fire, and roads motivate me to walk more to get to roadless areas.
Most recently I've had a few days of insane bushwhacking: dropping down into the Kings River Gorge/canyon following bear trails two days ago, and yesterday and first half of today attempting to find and follow trails (on the map but may not have been maintained in decades) before giving up and taking the OHV (off highway vehicle) routes. I've found the heat and the poison oak at these lower elevations by the way.
Last night I was on a mountaintop penned in by chaparral and scrub oak--where I stopped I could not stand up--after following old foot trail to cow trail to bear "trail", getting progressively more shredded in the process. Madness. --perhaps related to my not wanting to stop various things I get started on, whether reading, computer fiddling, eating, and what else? (typing these!) or not wanting to have to turn around and go back considering how shredding and trailless the trip up had been.
Thank goodness for the greater cycles within which my foolishness and lack of will to practice self-control occur: the sun sets, the book ends, the no-cook food runs out, the batteries get low.
What has been for the worse, though: the smoke from the fires. We seem to get a valley breeze in the evenings (cold air sinking?), so mornings by around 2am for the past three mornings the air has been fairly thick with smoke (how close are the fires??). I considered the possibility of becoming charred remains up there on that hill, especially as I cooked my dinner and was reminded how the manzanita--which I had only to reach above or around me to gather--burns like a blowtorch. I did have about four liters of water with me, perhaps lessening the foolishness score. But I more or less had to crawl through poison oak (it's fall, mostly leafless and dried out, and I'd survived the previous day's encounters--but had a river to soak in), and I am wearing shorts, and I had ripped the silicone nylon enclosure I made for the top of my pack, meaning it and what it contained would get caught on more and more of the brush I crawled through, with the catching & ripping getting progressively worse (++foolishness).
I woke early--in the smell of woodsmoke in the brush-enclosed darkness, with no easy, clear path of departure--, I packed by 5am, tried to move a bit with my LED light, then sat and waited (mental stuff, rested, +read a little) for haze-dimmed daylight. Made it back to the cow trails by 0630 or 0700? Back to the marked trail by 1100. On the map this trail continues, but I found no continuation on the ground, though there were similar ancient blazes (continuation not found) on oaks near the highest reach of the cow trails! And back to the road by 1200.
Now I've gotten in trouble the other way: I asked for and accepted a ride that got me most of the way up the OHV road--avoiding much of a long, hot climb. Later without being 100% sure where I was, I accepted (though I did not have a thumb out, and I did hesitate) a short ride that put me partway along hwy 180--but I wanted to be on the forest service road to the north (I had considered it and walked by, confused by labeling saying it went to Millville, which is not on my map)--that road would be much more peaceful, there's probably a spring along it, and it gets to the east in a nice spot. Well I decided not to turn around, and eventually found an FS (forest service) road to get a bit of a ways off the hwy. But I still have maybe 6 mi of hwy walking for tomorrow am, and only a quarter of a liter of H20 left after cooking a good dinner. And I'm a bit itchy, rather dirty, and the fat ants are running over each other to be my dessert--but the swarms of eye flies went to bed with the sun, and perhaps I'm far enough south to now avoid the morning fire smog.
--
Reading Pynchon--alot could be said. About the bears and the cows and the ants and the people, how they seem to wander every where--alot could be said? About feeling alive and fully engaged following those animal trails--the mystery, amazement where they lead, down and up cliffs, to water, on belly, on crablegs, scraping, shredding through brush, feeling the scrape on skin, continuing anyway, or because?--ditto.
Well, that may be all then. I've enjoyed a few emails that made it through--one from Starhawk about the RNC, one from Jim Bell . . . and the ProEVO people apparently sent out another shipment of books ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pro-evo ?)
It would be good if I could post a proposed route before I head to possible no reception for the next two weeks. But the only solid plan is to resupply somehow (about a day's food remains), to look at big sequoias, to continue south, to not bushwhack any more--or at least no more following bear scufflings . . . no more poison oak.
Not sure whether I'll stop by Quail Springs and Los Padres NF, not sure how soon I'll be back in SD (very end of Sept? Week before end?). Seems I want to not get stuck there--it would be so easy and perhaps not unpleasant to get rutted there for a month again (and work on various things related to Mexico travel). But since I started this trip I've never spent two nights in the same spot. . . perhaps keep that up? I wish to avoid my grandma (Ann)'s fearfulness. Unlike Sherwood Anderson's characters--well, never mind attempting to express that.
No grand plans. I may now be embedded out here--reading & listening to books and wandering around really may be enough, and richer than most things I can imagine. Challenges come up--finding trails, resupplying gracefully, reading--. I avoid the ugliness of the car-city and car-presence, the rutness of house living. I could see myself hopping a freight train and riding along to somewhere.
Comfort will be an issue. Too much heat, poison oak, biting, stinging ants, flying bugs, bad air from burning forests--
The only thing I think could be good to learn from that I may not get out here is doing involved things with others--you know, the ideal of great collaborators: dance companies, artist groups, teams, business, activists, tribes, whatever. At least I'll read about collaboration, real and imaginary.
Two things I noted on my pad a while ago as contemplation possibilities: (1) life as ambiguity reduction; (2) life/PCT as novel: what will make you want to finish/keep reading/see it through?
2008-09-06-1129, Sequoia NP
Peace,
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
onwrd? Soc; clean; < choice exasperation
About to leave my perch by Lake Edison--been laying about, eating a bit more, working on getting into Pynchon's _Mason & Dixon_.
A memorable moment two days ago now was listening to the Librivox reading of Plato's _Apologia_. The reading by a Detroit priest and the translation I find compelling, and the personality of Socrates something I can't recall having encountered anywhere for a very long time. Ideas such as: (my attempts at paraphrasing) "Man should do what he believes right regardless of concerns for his safety or situation in life."; "To maintain a known good I will not avoid what may or may not be good (death)"; "From virtue all else follows." (Franklin does mention Socrates); "I have a sense that tells me what not to do, but never what to do; this I always obey, and so I do not enter politics, and anyway, were I to do so, with my devotion to truth, I would have been killed long ago."
The oddness of the whole scenario as well makes it compelling--I haven't finished it yet, but a man is being sentenced to death for being annoying (on the surface). This man has got the idea (from the god/oracle) that he is the most wise of all, and his mission (from the gods) is to go around verifying that. He believes this leads to the betterment of everyone due to people who thought themselves wise and perhaps deceiving others to think so too being exposed in their ignorance.
Well, that scenario is not too uncommon, except that here, the annoyer gets the best press and the powerful (and the average) are shown to be harming everyone, even if, or even partly because they still sentence Socrates to die. I can't recall any other literary/dramatic/mythic situation where the one being got rid of is still respected enough or given enough power to--with rhetoric, logic, argument--expose to their faces (and to a sympathetic court audience?) without a doubt how foolish, ungodly, wrong are the charges against him.
It is as if in power are three fools, and everyone, and they themselves know themselves to be fools, and yet everyone still gives the three fools power to kill.
--
I'm not yet done pondering the effect of Socrates's example on my feelings and ideas about how to act.
Most everyone is, as he says, doing the best they can to get on. But he is sent from the gods--As shown by his neglect of concern about wealth and retirement and a potentially untimely end.
I don't consider myself showing great virtue, but I do seem to share this sense of what not to do. But as a result, I do not act in the world, such as by acquiring property, doing/teaching permaculture, being a force for positive progress in various ways.
Most everyone is running about, concerned about getting on in ways material, familial, spiritual, ecological. I'm sort of just stopping[?]. Letting it all go by. Not even trying to develop in any way (though I did earlier mention getting out of a rut, facing, overcoming fear of unknowns).
As it happens, doing this I can grow more and more out of the realms I used to be in.
I used to, when I lived with more despair than now, imagine a [not un]happy future as [1] an old man on a park bench watching things go by--or [2] as a tree.
Now I doubt it will be that way, but rather as a grungy hobo, staying out of the way.
The cleanliness issue (of any worn garment), the weatherbeatenness of appearance, these are instant separating and distancing factors.
My friend Don and other aboriginal skills people seem to be positively--somewhat happily--acculturated modern people who have these weatherbeaten, grungy (or all hand-made garment) aspects, besides those we usually refer to as the urban/rural homeless.
So, you start acting differently than you used to, you start to become more different from the population you may have once fit into more or less. And those whom you used to know may be dismayed should they encounter you again.
A monk shaves hair, wears robe; others grow hair and if they wear clothes, those get dirty.
Because this preoccupation with cleanliness as a virtue differentiating the civilized from the savage. . . well, it seems to be a harming thing. [It seems to exist]For all but abo/origin skills & green anarchist gatherings, maybe permaculture gatherings. . .
Oh well--I wonder what it will be like to be grungy in Mexico and elsewhere.
Efforts can be made to not stand out so much as living close to the earth and pinesap--if there's reason.
--
Another point for contemplation, by the way, was my writing of the tiredness of having to choose--of the "I want to die" thought coming at the idea of always having to come out of peace or engagement to choose direction again.
Well, clearly, that's an example of being overwhelmed, out of tune with the Dao, or however you want to say it.
So I watch for that sense more. And after hearing Socrates, for some reason-- perhaps his focus on his mission from the gods, perhaps just his attitude and vigor--I began to ask, "Why choose at all?" or, at least, why get exasperated about having to choose--
[I also considered: there is no choice: I am a given; any options & variables are too; when one encounters the others, there will be one result. And got to pondering a bit about fate, free will, and Covey's "between stimulus and response their is a gap/freedom." Ultimately this just led to the idea of being more patient--I think--keeping the idea in mind that any outcome is somewhat forgone and that I need not get stressed about having to make choices.]
I can't say much more than that now, except that recently, I've been watching for the exasperation (self-caused) at some perceived choice, and then, sort of, choosing not to choose.
There are many and yet two main ways I was once considering as possible to walk once I get up.
I had not got up earlier partly due to a waning of enthusiasm for wandering isolated forests for hours on unmaintained trails.
Well none of those considerations may matter much. When the time comes, I'll get up. I'll go some way. And so on.
A recent example of not choosing that stands out was the choice of getting on the bus to Mammoth and all that happened from there. The attitude was, "well, who knows?"
I still ultimately ended my adventures with Gianni and others I met and returned to this larger chosen, constructed plan, but--well that whole thing did feel more like hopping into a flow (, then getting out, drying off).
In a way this feels like letting external things chart one's path. Or relinquishing will, the idea of identity, schemes, plans. Even "common sense," virtue.
Ceasing to be what most people (I?) think of to be a person.
Well, it's a new experiment--at least it signals more awareness about that self-induced exasperation that brings awareness of not enjoying living.
--
Last note is I may be where there's no cell reception for two weeks--the way things have been going that seems unlikely, but if nothing from me for two, even three weeks, I'm somewhere between Lake Edison and Sequioa National Park [or even Kernville--tentative end-of-September destination] living off the excess hiker food from Vermilion VR & Muir Trail Ranch and will emerge, at the latest, when that runs out.
2008-08-26-1629
Peace,
A memorable moment two days ago now was listening to the Librivox reading of Plato's _Apologia_. The reading by a Detroit priest and the translation I find compelling, and the personality of Socrates something I can't recall having encountered anywhere for a very long time. Ideas such as: (my attempts at paraphrasing) "Man should do what he believes right regardless of concerns for his safety or situation in life."; "To maintain a known good I will not avoid what may or may not be good (death)"; "From virtue all else follows." (Franklin does mention Socrates); "I have a sense that tells me what not to do, but never what to do; this I always obey, and so I do not enter politics, and anyway, were I to do so, with my devotion to truth, I would have been killed long ago."
The oddness of the whole scenario as well makes it compelling--I haven't finished it yet, but a man is being sentenced to death for being annoying (on the surface). This man has got the idea (from the god/oracle) that he is the most wise of all, and his mission (from the gods) is to go around verifying that. He believes this leads to the betterment of everyone due to people who thought themselves wise and perhaps deceiving others to think so too being exposed in their ignorance.
Well, that scenario is not too uncommon, except that here, the annoyer gets the best press and the powerful (and the average) are shown to be harming everyone, even if, or even partly because they still sentence Socrates to die. I can't recall any other literary/dramatic/mythic situation where the one being got rid of is still respected enough or given enough power to--with rhetoric, logic, argument--expose to their faces (and to a sympathetic court audience?) without a doubt how foolish, ungodly, wrong are the charges against him.
It is as if in power are three fools, and everyone, and they themselves know themselves to be fools, and yet everyone still gives the three fools power to kill.
--
I'm not yet done pondering the effect of Socrates's example on my feelings and ideas about how to act.
Most everyone is, as he says, doing the best they can to get on. But he is sent from the gods--As shown by his neglect of concern about wealth and retirement and a potentially untimely end.
I don't consider myself showing great virtue, but I do seem to share this sense of what not to do. But as a result, I do not act in the world, such as by acquiring property, doing/teaching permaculture, being a force for positive progress in various ways.
Most everyone is running about, concerned about getting on in ways material, familial, spiritual, ecological. I'm sort of just stopping[?]. Letting it all go by. Not even trying to develop in any way (though I did earlier mention getting out of a rut, facing, overcoming fear of unknowns).
As it happens, doing this I can grow more and more out of the realms I used to be in.
I used to, when I lived with more despair than now, imagine a [not un]happy future as [1] an old man on a park bench watching things go by--or [2] as a tree.
Now I doubt it will be that way, but rather as a grungy hobo, staying out of the way.
The cleanliness issue (of any worn garment), the weatherbeatenness of appearance, these are instant separating and distancing factors.
My friend Don and other aboriginal skills people seem to be positively--somewhat happily--acculturated modern people who have these weatherbeaten, grungy (or all hand-made garment) aspects, besides those we usually refer to as the urban/rural homeless.
So, you start acting differently than you used to, you start to become more different from the population you may have once fit into more or less. And those whom you used to know may be dismayed should they encounter you again.
A monk shaves hair, wears robe; others grow hair and if they wear clothes, those get dirty.
Because this preoccupation with cleanliness as a virtue differentiating the civilized from the savage. . . well, it seems to be a harming thing. [It seems to exist]For all but abo/origin skills & green anarchist gatherings, maybe permaculture gatherings. . .
Oh well--I wonder what it will be like to be grungy in Mexico and elsewhere.
Efforts can be made to not stand out so much as living close to the earth and pinesap--if there's reason.
--
Another point for contemplation, by the way, was my writing of the tiredness of having to choose--of the "I want to die" thought coming at the idea of always having to come out of peace or engagement to choose direction again.
Well, clearly, that's an example of being overwhelmed, out of tune with the Dao, or however you want to say it.
So I watch for that sense more. And after hearing Socrates, for some reason-- perhaps his focus on his mission from the gods, perhaps just his attitude and vigor--I began to ask, "Why choose at all?" or, at least, why get exasperated about having to choose--
[I also considered: there is no choice: I am a given; any options & variables are too; when one encounters the others, there will be one result. And got to pondering a bit about fate, free will, and Covey's "between stimulus and response their is a gap/freedom." Ultimately this just led to the idea of being more patient--I think--keeping the idea in mind that any outcome is somewhat forgone and that I need not get stressed about having to make choices.]
I can't say much more than that now, except that recently, I've been watching for the exasperation (self-caused) at some perceived choice, and then, sort of, choosing not to choose.
There are many and yet two main ways I was once considering as possible to walk once I get up.
I had not got up earlier partly due to a waning of enthusiasm for wandering isolated forests for hours on unmaintained trails.
Well none of those considerations may matter much. When the time comes, I'll get up. I'll go some way. And so on.
A recent example of not choosing that stands out was the choice of getting on the bus to Mammoth and all that happened from there. The attitude was, "well, who knows?"
I still ultimately ended my adventures with Gianni and others I met and returned to this larger chosen, constructed plan, but--well that whole thing did feel more like hopping into a flow (, then getting out, drying off).
In a way this feels like letting external things chart one's path. Or relinquishing will, the idea of identity, schemes, plans. Even "common sense," virtue.
Ceasing to be what most people (I?) think of to be a person.
Well, it's a new experiment--at least it signals more awareness about that self-induced exasperation that brings awareness of not enjoying living.
--
Last note is I may be where there's no cell reception for two weeks--the way things have been going that seems unlikely, but if nothing from me for two, even three weeks, I'm somewhere between Lake Edison and Sequioa National Park [or even Kernville--tentative end-of-September destination] living off the excess hiker food from Vermilion VR & Muir Trail Ranch and will emerge, at the latest, when that runs out.
2008-08-26-1629
Peace,
Sunday, August 24, 2008
prissy not
2008-08-24-1034 Ever heaven, ever wrong. I need not accept it, perhaps, but my friends left trash, at least a receipt, probably the rest was theirs, mostly just their freeze-dried food bag filled with stuff, and other scraps and litter and a plastic single-use shopping bag, the kind being banned. The receipt was the asian guy from Gaithersburg's for fishing gear, dated 8/20.
I was frolicking around suitless in my private, eternally-flowing pools, several nearly olympic size, warm enough, though not for too long, with elements of danger: could I be sucked down, and not able to get back--walls too sheer, current too strong? But all was well, and after the above discovery went back for my until-then-unused goggles, and then I could see the fish.
Now warming in the sun about to walk on south--those other guys were returning north to their car. I do not fathom what I have witnessed here [a lover's quarrel, a rushed night-time departure, did I disturb their isolation?]. These were the trekking-pole type--but that's nearly anyone with extra $. So, ever heaven, ever wrong. And they're headed to Paiute Canyon (North Lake Trailhead), then French Canyon, Pine Canyon, and going some cross-country (off-trail) places too. I've run into or heard of quite a few people going off-trail out here.
Happily, only around this spot, Cassidy Bridge, have I found so much trash, but usually I don't hang out where others camp.
1107
Peace,
I was frolicking around suitless in my private, eternally-flowing pools, several nearly olympic size, warm enough, though not for too long, with elements of danger: could I be sucked down, and not able to get back--walls too sheer, current too strong? But all was well, and after the above discovery went back for my until-then-unused goggles, and then I could see the fish.
Now warming in the sun about to walk on south--those other guys were returning north to their car. I do not fathom what I have witnessed here [a lover's quarrel, a rushed night-time departure, did I disturb their isolation?]. These were the trekking-pole type--but that's nearly anyone with extra $. So, ever heaven, ever wrong. And they're headed to Paiute Canyon (North Lake Trailhead), then French Canyon, Pine Canyon, and going some cross-country (off-trail) places too. I've run into or heard of quite a few people going off-trail out here.
Happily, only around this spot, Cassidy Bridge, have I found so much trash, but usually I don't hang out where others camp.
1107
Peace,
motive-seeking; Charles Pinkston
2008-08-24-0641 I was laying here, post dream-world, seeking motivating force. I have a reprieve from hunger/nutrition-yearning (my healthfood, nutrient-rich, calorie-poor rations from my resupply bucket have been getting somewhat unexciting--though I was getting a bit sleeker--leading to desire to arrive at Vermilion Valley Resort soon.): three 3.75-ounce tins of smoked clams, two of oysters, one of vienna wieners (can't remember exactly what those things are called & no label) left behind in a messy site, which I did clean up a bit and will pack some stuff out of. These will help. I may have been needing more cholesterol, fat, or I'm not sure what. My fat this time is the coconut threads. They satiate me but do not energize me as much as the parmesan. I ate the last two of these tins just now.
An early thought was amazement at the richness of the dream world. I sleep more out here than I did in my SD rut. More elaborateness of dreams appears, or more is remembered.
Another thought: my friends across the river appear to be gone. A spot like this-- Cassidy Bridge, across the San Joaquin River--on the weekend, I'd think to find more people. The trail is poorly maintained, though, and, it seems, many trails through areas designated "wilderness", besides the PCT &JMT, are infrequently traveled and poorly maintained. The river is warm here, and has a deep pool. After crossing the bridge only waving to them, I swam back across in the dusk to say hi. Two middle-aged--one white, one asian--guys, professional, well-to-do, from Modesto and DC (formerly Bay Area). Central valley towns interest me. A part of CA I've yet to spend much time in. The cultural contrast between JMT / high sierra hikers (like these guys) and the ones with stock animals who might drive in to a trailhead for the weekend. . . and leave tins of smoked meats behind for me--is something I wonder about.
I was on the topic of waking up, returning to, attempting to find, motivating force. I noted those guys were gone. Other thoughts: I never find myself in dreams as I do now, seeking motive. The forward compulsion, the push to do, seems ever-acting. It is as if, in the dream, the only noted events and memories are when there is something to react to: the river is rising, my quilt is getting wet, boats drift away, and we were to care for these. Now it is snowing hard. A friend has come to visit grandma, who says, with usual demeanor and energy, she's caught cold and is dying. Her friend eats a raw fish. I later go out to get some cereal from a hiker-barrel-like-barrel that is on railroad tracks out where the rising river used to be. Some of the workers reacted to me getting this--but many were drunk, or in the process of leaving for a party from the other half of what was now a duplex. I begin to expect a train to come along and attempt to get the track in order, switches right, but, a section of rails near where the cereal barrel was, I am not finding.
In a related story, I'm with some school-aged (7th-8th grade) friends, Charles Pinkston (sp?), Michael Wilhelm (sp?), and Kyle Decker (now McQuiston?; 3rd grade) made appearance too. A part focus was fantastic visual poems, not unlike the graphic novels (e.g., _Maus_), only these were one page or smaller. Wilhelm and my curiosity got me reading one aloud, or trying to, but it was hard to follow how to read it given the combination and jumbling of words and images. For some reason, Wilhelm wasn't guiding me well, and after, or during, a bus change (Wilhelm may have got us off in the wrong place), Pinkston brought out another of these poems, smaller (~a nearly square section of a dollar), more fantastic, and I began stumbling through that. Pinkston seemed to know how it could be done, or to have a deeper understanding of it.
A way to know you're dreaming, perhaps: read the same text twice and it changes (thanks to Richard's presentation on lucid dreaming at Barcamp SD 3).
Well, the main point was, in the dream there never seems to be this time for reflection.
Morning motive-seeking thoughts turned to the example of Benjamin Franklin, who I've heard more of now (via Librivox audiobook). He was an active, aware culture-channeler if ever there was one.
He had dreams of a world-wide political party or club of "men of virtue." And in reality sort of made a little one (limit 12), called, as near as I can tell, the Junta (J=h sound). Which eventually spawned a few others.
Once, I had my schemes, e.g., the being group.
Franklin, in the morning would ask, "what good shall I do today?"; in the evening, "what good have I done today?" He helped others.
Well, it is definitely the "others" part that has got to me. I'm not sure what to make of, how to interact with the other. In the past I've thought it a type of autism/asperger's, but that was fashionable, may still be.
What to do about, to make of, the undeniably social aspect of being.
Just flailing now, losing coherency perhaps, but in my situation, I've questioned masses of characteristics of the culture, failed to embrace, and so head off to subculture / sect land. Only, where I'm headed, there is no sect, only a recognition that the practice of the wandering, disconnected (relatively) individual is nothing new, will never be, only difference now being it may be easier to collect a broad range of the stories about these people (as was done in part of _Into the Wild_, _Encounters with Chinese Hermits_). Should there ever be a mass movement of these wandering simple livers, will we say anything of consequence to each other as we pass on the trail, or in our kayaks along some deserted coastline? Perhaps, "how's the trail ahead?", or not even that, because the ambiguities, frivolities of that question already begin to overwhelm.
Here, my talk is largely one-way. I limit incoming communication, interaction by living this way. The incoming I've allowed has been a few of the emails that still go my way, the audiobooks, the ebooks, some of the people and things I meet along the way. One of the biggest live-person incomings, by the way, was during my rides with two truck drivers one day long ago on the way here.
I think I could work with someone (others) who felt and relished/wallowed in the ambiguities of life and interaction as much as I do.
But it might have to be a woman (my attraction to her) or a gay man (his to me) for us to remain interacting where, out here, each is free to walk off any which way, and who, like me, is likely to be at a point in life where a type of independence, aloneness has been known and adapted to for so long, that sustained interaction with others/another would require a compelling reason to adapt to. Another scenario is the adult-child interaction--
Rambling mind stopped (momentarily)--I stretch my arms, make a sound, look around.
0850
Peace,
An early thought was amazement at the richness of the dream world. I sleep more out here than I did in my SD rut. More elaborateness of dreams appears, or more is remembered.
Another thought: my friends across the river appear to be gone. A spot like this-- Cassidy Bridge, across the San Joaquin River--on the weekend, I'd think to find more people. The trail is poorly maintained, though, and, it seems, many trails through areas designated "wilderness", besides the PCT &JMT, are infrequently traveled and poorly maintained. The river is warm here, and has a deep pool. After crossing the bridge only waving to them, I swam back across in the dusk to say hi. Two middle-aged--one white, one asian--guys, professional, well-to-do, from Modesto and DC (formerly Bay Area). Central valley towns interest me. A part of CA I've yet to spend much time in. The cultural contrast between JMT / high sierra hikers (like these guys) and the ones with stock animals who might drive in to a trailhead for the weekend. . . and leave tins of smoked meats behind for me--is something I wonder about.
I was on the topic of waking up, returning to, attempting to find, motivating force. I noted those guys were gone. Other thoughts: I never find myself in dreams as I do now, seeking motive. The forward compulsion, the push to do, seems ever-acting. It is as if, in the dream, the only noted events and memories are when there is something to react to: the river is rising, my quilt is getting wet, boats drift away, and we were to care for these. Now it is snowing hard. A friend has come to visit grandma, who says, with usual demeanor and energy, she's caught cold and is dying. Her friend eats a raw fish. I later go out to get some cereal from a hiker-barrel-like-barrel that is on railroad tracks out where the rising river used to be. Some of the workers reacted to me getting this--but many were drunk, or in the process of leaving for a party from the other half of what was now a duplex. I begin to expect a train to come along and attempt to get the track in order, switches right, but, a section of rails near where the cereal barrel was, I am not finding.
In a related story, I'm with some school-aged (7th-8th grade) friends, Charles Pinkston (sp?), Michael Wilhelm (sp?), and Kyle Decker (now McQuiston?; 3rd grade) made appearance too. A part focus was fantastic visual poems, not unlike the graphic novels (e.g., _Maus_), only these were one page or smaller. Wilhelm and my curiosity got me reading one aloud, or trying to, but it was hard to follow how to read it given the combination and jumbling of words and images. For some reason, Wilhelm wasn't guiding me well, and after, or during, a bus change (Wilhelm may have got us off in the wrong place), Pinkston brought out another of these poems, smaller (~a nearly square section of a dollar), more fantastic, and I began stumbling through that. Pinkston seemed to know how it could be done, or to have a deeper understanding of it.
A way to know you're dreaming, perhaps: read the same text twice and it changes (thanks to Richard's presentation on lucid dreaming at Barcamp SD 3).
Well, the main point was, in the dream there never seems to be this time for reflection.
Morning motive-seeking thoughts turned to the example of Benjamin Franklin, who I've heard more of now (via Librivox audiobook). He was an active, aware culture-channeler if ever there was one.
He had dreams of a world-wide political party or club of "men of virtue." And in reality sort of made a little one (limit 12), called, as near as I can tell, the Junta (J=h sound). Which eventually spawned a few others.
Once, I had my schemes, e.g., the being group.
Franklin, in the morning would ask, "what good shall I do today?"; in the evening, "what good have I done today?" He helped others.
Well, it is definitely the "others" part that has got to me. I'm not sure what to make of, how to interact with the other. In the past I've thought it a type of autism/asperger's, but that was fashionable, may still be.
What to do about, to make of, the undeniably social aspect of being.
Just flailing now, losing coherency perhaps, but in my situation, I've questioned masses of characteristics of the culture, failed to embrace, and so head off to subculture / sect land. Only, where I'm headed, there is no sect, only a recognition that the practice of the wandering, disconnected (relatively) individual is nothing new, will never be, only difference now being it may be easier to collect a broad range of the stories about these people (as was done in part of _Into the Wild_, _Encounters with Chinese Hermits_). Should there ever be a mass movement of these wandering simple livers, will we say anything of consequence to each other as we pass on the trail, or in our kayaks along some deserted coastline? Perhaps, "how's the trail ahead?", or not even that, because the ambiguities, frivolities of that question already begin to overwhelm.
Here, my talk is largely one-way. I limit incoming communication, interaction by living this way. The incoming I've allowed has been a few of the emails that still go my way, the audiobooks, the ebooks, some of the people and things I meet along the way. One of the biggest live-person incomings, by the way, was during my rides with two truck drivers one day long ago on the way here.
I think I could work with someone (others) who felt and relished/wallowed in the ambiguities of life and interaction as much as I do.
But it might have to be a woman (my attraction to her) or a gay man (his to me) for us to remain interacting where, out here, each is free to walk off any which way, and who, like me, is likely to be at a point in life where a type of independence, aloneness has been known and adapted to for so long, that sustained interaction with others/another would require a compelling reason to adapt to. Another scenario is the adult-child interaction--
Rambling mind stopped (momentarily)--I stretch my arms, make a sound, look around.
0850
Peace,
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