“A thousand Dreams within me softly burn: From time to time my heart is like some oak Whose blood runs golden where a branch is torn.” — Arthur Rimbaud, Complete Works
We all dream of things beyond the scope of our present situation. It’s human nature to dream, and we tend to collect dreams like books waiting to be read. How many books can we read in a lifetime? When you think of your average, it’s a surprisingly short number. So it is with dreams: we may dream an unlimited number, but accomplish but a few. We ought to make them our favorites.
Dreams are evasive distractions until we start working towards them. Dreaming is unproductive on its own, for we must scheme as well. Without a plan, we risk walking in circles. Or maybe we dance in circles, happy in our own little world, content to linger with our dream. But we humans like to scheme too, and soon we’re dreaming of the next mountain to climb.
Schemes and dreams pair well together in this way. But we’ve all experienced moments where we’re forever planning our next big move, but never actually beginning the climb. Excessive planning is procrastination. Dreams and schemes are just a dance without action.
We tend to think we’ll be productive and get things done in good time. But great ideas don’t transform themselves into completed work, the muse just chooses a different author willing to dance long enough to make it real. That trip of a lifetime likewise doesn’t happen on it’s own. We must do the work to realize our dreams, or they’ll simply dance with someone else.
Call me old-fashioned if you will. Call me privileged in a first world sort of privileged way. But I prefer an assigned seat when I travel. The budget airlines like Southwest built an empire on first come, first served, which merged into assigned groups. My particular group is C21, which isn’t good folks. There are 140 people boarding before me, making it likely I’ll be checking a bag and sitting in a midfle seat. Poor me, right?
The thing is, I don’t mind any of this except for the lack of an assigned seat. Middle seat? Not ideal but will make it work. No room for my bag in overhead ? Don’t lose it please. But the mystery of musical chairs? I can do without it, thanks. Give me predictability in business travel.
We all have our crosses to bear—this is one of mine. Wanna get away? Check in early. But on the plus side, I finished this blog post during the wait for my middle seat.
“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammad Ali
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
Is courage the leap into the unknown or the perseverance and grit to see it through? I think Muhammad Ali would add that courage requires more of us than simply stepping into the ring, it’s taking the punches and standing up again round-after-round. We all have our own ring to step into, filled with work, family, relationships, fitness goals, writing goals, getting-through-the-day goals.
What are we prioritizing and what do we let slip away? Isn’t it just as courageous to say no as it is to say yes to something? Perhaps more so? Which does beg the question: What are we really trying to accomplish in our brief time here?
A long and rewarding career? Wrestling a career from the ground up is a grind, filled with moments of sacrifice and tactics, honor and betrayal, tedium and tenure. How we play it determines just how long and rewarding it turns out to be. Maybe we also prioritize building a strong nest and raising a family. It takes courage simply to have children, especially for the mother, but also courage to stay in the game for the long haul—raising them to be strong advocates for decency and hope.
Just what do we lean into for the long haul? Comfort? Adventure? Can you be comfortable when you seek adventure? Perhaps, but isn’t it a different kind of comfort than the comfort the person who seeks comfort seeks? Every climb requires discomfort. Every leaper must bear the impact of the landing before leaping again. Discomfort is what we pay now for comfort later. Conversely, comfort now tends to make later more discomfortable. We each must pay our dues in life to get to the place we want to be. Life takes time and courage to see it through.
The neighbors through the woods had a large shed built last year during the summer months. My bride and I debated just what they were building as it seemingly took all summer to complete the work. She said that whatever it was, we’d have the big reveal when the leaves dropped in the fall and everything would become obvious. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.
It’s worth asking ourselves every time we stand up in our own ring, why am I doing this? For there’s no long-term courage without a compelling purpose. Sometimes the answers are obvious, and sometimes we have to wait for our own big reveal, when the seasons change and the things that were most important all along become apparent. Often, courage is staying the course long enough to find out.
When we come across young people who exhibit a level of maturity beyond their years, we often describe them as having old souls. Many of us believe that the job of parents is to raise children to be old souls from as young an age as possible. Teaching life skills that will carry them a long way in life is the obvious primary mission, but also critical is to avoid leaving as much of our own personal baggage on their shoulders as possible. The best parents are both instructive and inclusive with children. When they feel a part of the conversation, they feel enabled and drawn into the world. When they’re constantly berated and corrected by parents, they feel inadequate and diminished. Thus old souls are formed by inclusive parenting.
Young hearts think in possibility, take leaps of faith, seek adventure and break rules. Certainly many young people have a young heart, but many don’t. Just so, there are many old people with young hearts too. It’s an exclusive club, revealed with a secret handshake and a twinkle in the eye—you know the young at heart when you encounter them in the wild. And if you’re inclined to do things that others feel aren’t appropriate for your age and status, well, you might have a young heart too.
To get anything done in this world, we must have a healthy combination of old soul and young heart: Maturity and insight mixed with the Moxie to just do it already. Old souls with young hearts make the world go round. Inventors and pioneers, musicians and poets, fighter pilots and social leaders who dare shake up the status quo, all have the right stuff. Bold, but not reckless, they seek expression in their chosen craft.
We forget, sometimes, that older people with young hearts get a lot of things done too. We can accomplish so much more as we get some momentum behind us if we choose to pursue our own passions. Age is simply a number—it’s fitness, health and vibrancy that fuel the fire, whether you’re 23 or 103 or somewhere in between. If we’re lucky and blessed with enough runway, forward propulsion and lift, we just might soar. Life is best lived with an old soul and a young heart.
There haven’t been a lot of hiking blog posts this year as there simply haven’t been a lot of hikes. Similarly, there haven’t been a lot of waterfall visits or posts either. Life sometimes has other plans for us. So imagine my delight when I could combine two 4000 footers with one of the highest rated waterfalls in New England. You might day we hit the trifecta, but we didn’t stop at three amazing experiences. On a spectacular October day after a day of heavy rains, we were set up for quite a day in the White Mountains.
That heavy rain factored in to where we parked and which trail head we started from. The easy button on this day was to pay the fee for parking at the Cog Railway parking lot and hiking up the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail. This is a relatively easy trail to warm up on, until you hit the gem pool and begin a steep incline. This was a workout for this author, recently celebrating long streaks of 10,000 steps on flat land and thinking that translated into better fitness, but it was a small price to pay for the spectacular views of falling water and, once above tree line, the vistas from Mount Monroe and Mount Washington. Ironically, my Apple Watch died halfway through the hike and my streak of 10K steps “ended” on a day I did far more. Go figure.
The Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail offers plenty of opportunity to see falling water. The Gem Pool is a lovely spot with a 35 foot waterfall right on the trail and impossible to miss. Further along, there’s a side spur that features a more stunning view of a 600-700 foot cascade that was roaring on this particular day. Some blown-down trees partially blocked the spur trail but it was a small investment in time for an incredible view. Talking to one hiker as we came back to the main trail, I mentioned that it was totally worth the side trip. He politely ignored me and continued his hike up to Mount Monroe. I wondered, how many incredible moments do we miss out on when we’re so singularly focused on a goal? To use Pico Iyer’s phrase, we abdicate possibility in such moments.
The trail eventually brings you to the AMC Lakes of the Clouds Hut, closed for the season when we arrived, but offering a warm sunny spot to take a break before continuing to summit Mount Monroe. This is where serendipity stepped in, and we bumped into the two sons of a close friend as they descended from Monroe just after we’d done the same. A few minutes for either party and the encounter would never have happened. Life is full of such chance encounters when we put ourselves in a position to experience them.
The hike to Mount Washington from Mount Monroe looks relatively simple, but that’s the White Mountains for you. The reality is a hike up a boulder field one deliberate step at a time. Some trail runners make quick work of this, for me it was an opportunity to pace myself. The two sons were soon summiting Mount Washington while I took my sweet time. My hiking buddy Tom was kind enough to wait for me now and then. Getting back in hiking shape after months away from it takes a few hikes. Resuming my quest to complete the 48 4000 footers on the highest peak wasn’t reckless (Washington is relatively easy compared to some lower peaks), but it was bold.
On this particular day, the Mount Washington Observatory was celebrating its 90th birthday with tours of the weather station. This was a wonderful opportunity to see what happens behind that door, and literally top the experience off with a climb to the weather observatory itself, the highest point you can stand on in New England, and have a look around. Opportunities like that don’t come along often, and it was another moment of serendipity on this day of days.
If this all sounds like it was too good to be true, well, I still had to pay penance for the audacity of hiking two of the highest peaks in one day. That price was paid in the form of a pair of boots that weren’t up to the task, making the descent rather painful, and with some cramping in the thighs as the finish was just in sight. There were lessons learned on this day: Don’t ever go on a hike unprepared for the things you’ll put yourself through, and always have the best boots available to help finish the job. If there’s a positive lesson, and you’ve no doubt picked up on it already, it’s that putting yourself out there pays dividends in experience both challenging and inspiring. We may live a grander and more full life simply by moving towards it.
Upper Ammonoosuc Ravine FallsGem Pool, Ammonoosuc RavineMount Washington from Mount Monroe. Looks close, doesn’t it?Mount MonroeLake of the Clouds with Mount Washington rising above it all
“Never own more than you can carry in both hands at a dead run.”― Robert Heinlein
I’ve been known to overpack for a hike. Better too much gear than not enough, I tell myself as I haul that extra weight over hill and dale. There’s a lot to be said for being prepared for anything, but let’s not overdo it. No reason to pack for a week for a day hike.
Why do we wait for such things as moving or hiking to consider eliminating the unnecessary clutter out of our lives? Witnessing those who downsize, the process seems painful. We’ve all heard that expression “You can’t take it with you.” If you only have enough things to move at a moment’s notice, well, it seems like you just might be free.
“Quitting, for me, means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something. It’s not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in one’s journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting–whether a job or a habit–means taking a turn so as to be sure you’re still moving in the direction of your highest dreams.” — Pico Iyer, “Quit Pro Quotes”, Utne Reader, Sept./Oct. 1996
We all have moments when we contemplate quitting and doing something else with our brief time. What stops us? Persistence? Faith in the future we’re building? Or is a sense of obligation? We slide into lethargic habits built over time and don’t see that there may be another way. I used to call this an attractive rut that one could easily stay in until the end of time. Maybe having a drink every day at 5 PM is the proper response for a long day of work, or maybe simply walking until you forget what your troubles were does it. Then again, maybe the proper response is to quit altogether the life built around what we believe to be all there is in our world. The answer is different for each of us, but the way we react when someone suggests quitting something deeply ingrained within our identity is telling, isn’t it?
When you read the word ingrained, did you immediately think of the spelling? I often debate internally whether to use ingrained or engrained when I write it, which says as much about me as anything I suppose. But the point is, we all have traits and defaults within us that seem natural (like obsessing over the right way to use a word that 99% of the world won’t give a thought to). Whether those traits and defaults are productive or detrimental to our progress is a question worth asking ourselves now and then.
I encourage you to either click the link to read the rest of Iyer’s thoughts on quitting, or Googling the article if you’re rightfully suspicious of clicking links random bloggers throw at you (although you can trust this random blogger—I promise). There’s magic in Iyer’s words, as there usually is, and they may change you profoundly, as they have me even as I write this. The quote above is easily found (Rolf Potts points to it often), but, as with any quote, mining deeper into the place it was drawn from offers so much more. For me, Iyer landed a knockout punch with this nugget:
“Continuing the job would represent an invisible kind of quitting–an abdication of possibility–and would leave me with live unlived that I would one day, and too late, regret”.
Don’t read this as a public admission that I’m quitting my job anytime soon, but a spotlight on the key message here: we all abdicate possibility that we will one day regret if we don’t go for it immediately. For now is all we have, and there’s living unlived to get to. See the world. Write the book. Hike that mountain. Sail to that faraway destination. Ask the question. Take the chance…. LIVE.
“In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.” ― Robert A. Heinlein
“To enjoy the full flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.” — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
We all walk the line between being active producers and active consumers. As with everything, there’s a balance between the two to have a full life. The world, as it pleases, fills us up with things to do. We actively participate or we step off the production line and dance to our own beat, but we aren’t machines, and even the most productive among us need to consume to refuel and recharge.
Then again, we see plenty of examples of people over-consuming and not getting anything done in their lives. And surely in this world there’s plenty to consume: food, opinion, trivial pursuits, time. We ought to ask, when consumption is tipping the scales, “just where is this taking me?” But sometimes, as Elvis put it, we get caught in a trap we can’t walk out of. Surely, we must steer clear of the traps.
I think a lot about the two Heinlein quotes above. I’ve been saving them for some time now, thinking each would stand on their own in a blog post, but they also pair well together. Each highlights this wrestling match called living. We want to have clear purpose and a mission we believe in, for humans are meant to produce something of consequence in our brief time. And we want to be bold and see the world—making the most of this brief time with the sensory experiences that make life worth living in the first place.
The thing is, we know when things are in balance, just as we know when something is off. The absence of clear purpose makes us “a slave to the man”, as a friend puts it. Put another way, if we aren’t working on our own goals, someone else will gladly give us theirs to work on. We must actively pursue that which has meaning for us, and steadily move away from daily trivia.
What do we have an appetite for? Decide what to be and go be it. We tend to think small in our days, while forgetting what’s possible over a lifetime. Perhaps too many big bites will give us indigestion, but too few will leave us starving for more. As with everything, balance is the key, but don’t get caught in the trap of thinking small.
I recognize that this post featured a lot of paraphrased quotes. It was simply me processing each in real time. Thanks for sticking with me on this one. Go be it. I’ll work to do the same.
Want the change. Be inspired by the flame where everything shines as it disappears. The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much as the curve of the body as it turns away. What locks itself in sameness has congealed. Is it safer to be gray and numb? What turns hard becomes rigid and is easily shattered. Pour yourself out like a fountain. Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins. Every happiness is the child of a separation it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming a laurel, dares you to become the wind. — Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets To Orpheus, Part Two, XII
Changes come to us in our own time, but often we grow comfortable in our own sameness. For meaningful change to happen we must step away from ourselves and become something else—something different, something more. Which way to go? It hardly matters at first, for we must break the comfortable spell we find ourselves in before we might finally see what’s available to us.
The thing is, change takes many forms. Some people emphatically sail away from it all to see the world, while for other people change takes shape in less obvious ways. The pace of change is different for each of us. But we’re changing nonetheless. Like a sailor waiting for a weather window, we don’t always control the pace of change, but we may yet arrive if we keep working towards our objective. Put another way, we must have agency over our own transformation to live a full and rewarding life, while recognizing we aren’t on this journey alone.
Yet it remains true that we must be the arsonist to our old self. Change begins with the spark of inspiration, kindled into a flame, that grows into a signal fire. We grow into ourselves one step at a time. As Rilke says so beautifully; “Every happiness is the child of a separation it did not thing it could survive”. We are aware of the changes happening within us and around us—do we shrink into our shell at such moments or embrace it? Life in every moment is a reckoning between who we believe ourselves to be and the person we wish to become.
“Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is…and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be…and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart…no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn’t matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired-but it does to them.” ― Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
We might never achieve the mastery of a Rodin in our art, but surely it’s something to aspire to. We might also aspire to it in this bold act of living. For living with and for others is itself an art, mastered by some, clumsily attempted by most. Everyone wants to be seen and heard and appreciated in the moment they encounter another person. How many disappoint in that moment of truth?
I aspire to craft a sentence like Heinlein’s in each post. Maybe I will attain that level of craftsmanship on the next one, or the one after that. Time will inform the reader of such things, but making a go of it day-after-day is what matters most on our journey to becoming. Art isn’t the same as aging, for aging subtracts some vitality from the physical self, while days are accretive in art.
At a party recently, I was reminiscing with a woman about her mother, who passed away a couple of years ago, shattering my belief that she would live forever. When she was alive she and I had a thing for each other, she being 40 years my senior, but young at heart. From the day I first met her I treated her as the vibrant woman I saw in her eyes, and she treated me as her would-be suitor, doomed to fail but welcome to try. This performance went on for almost three decades before she passed, and still makes me smile today.
We may not become a Rodin or Heinlein in our art. But living offers other opportunities for mastery. Life is about the connections we make with people along the way, one after the other, in our time here. To master that is truly a gift.
