“Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives.” — Henry David Thoreau
“If you want to be happy, be.” – Leo Tolstoy
“Happiness is transient, but meaning abides.” — James Hollis
We are all in the process of becoming whatever it is we’ll evolve into next. Blogging documents much of my own becoming, along with a few reckless photos of myself that others insist on releasing into the wild. When you document everything, the documenter captures while seemingly avoiding capture. This is a fools game, everything documented speaks, if we listen and observe closely enough. The trick is to listen closely enough to ourselves.
The three quotes above naturally clung to each other in the course of a few weeks of reading and writing and sorting out life as it comes to you. We must consider the way in which we spend our lives, for the routines and habits offer a path to meaning and, dare we say, happiness. We are what we repeatedly do, as Aristotle reminds us (For those keeping score that’s four quotes in one relatively brief blog post—just what has gotten into this writer??).
Perspective, of course. And an inclination to write whatever damned way suits the moment, I suppose. But don’t let me stray too far off the point here. The point is, we must spend our days chipping away at the marble to reveal the secret masterpiece hidden within each of us. Like so many of those unfinished masterpieces you see in museums, we too may run out of time. No, that’s not right—we will certainly run out of time. But we must attempt to draw as much of ourselves out of that cold marble as we possible can before we reach the end of our runway and crash into the abyss.
We must attempt that which speaks to us. Becoming means to come to a place—what will that place be? Let it be meaningful.
“If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal — that is your success.” — Henry David Thoreau
I frequently tout the value of each day, going to great lengths to remind myself and anyone who’ll listen to seize it—Carpe diem!. Memento mori! It’s a system for being forever in the moment, maximizing each day as best you can as life throws its curveballs. And it immediately sorts obligations and opportunities into appropriate buckets.
I’m not always sympathetic when others value perceived obligations over the opportunity to amplify living, but I’ve learned to accept that it isn’t my life but theirs. Still, the question remains, as we begin another day, what will we make of it? We ought to do our best to make it successful, whatever that means to you.
“Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven.”— Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle
Thoreau’s Life Without Principle is a quick read, but well worth the hour or so it takes to digest it. As with anything in life, the question is, what do we want to prioritize in our brief time? The essay is itself a flash of light that opens the mind to a lot of questions we often push aside. Isn’t that what reading should do for us? Isn’t that what we aspire to in our very best writing?
“I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day’s devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.… Shall the mind be a public arena, where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chiefly are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself- an hypaethral temple, consecrated to the service of the gods? … We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention.”— Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle
Thoreau wrote this for a lecture he gave in 1855, but doesn’t it remain timeless? Why do we dwell on the gossip of our own day and defer the very best ideas for another? Most media is junk food for the mind. We snack way too much on empty calories in our information diet, leaving our souls starving for nutrition.
We must make knowledge our quest in our short time. If the best way to learn something is to teach it, it follows that we must tackle the deepest ideas in our own writing and conversations too. To participate in the Great Conversation and aspire to enlighten others as we become enlightened ourselves.
We become what we focus on the most. So it follows, we ought to continue to raise the bar on our own development. To realize a full and rich life, we ought to make our lives a knowledge quest. Each day offers its own wealth to mine. And an opportunity to be a philanthropist with that knowledge.
“Men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up.” — Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle
I’d recently fallen back into a cycle of drinking coffee from a K-cup. There was a lot happening in my life, and it was a fast way to caffeinate. But what I missed in the instant was the ritual of grinding my coffee beans, boiling water and sending bliss through an AeroPress into a favorite mug. Sure, the coffee tastes far better, but the ritual itself also rewards with moments of contemplation. The mind is free to consider what it will, free for a few minutes from the instant gratification of our modern world.
When we unconsciously work our way through a ritual, the world opens up for us, or maybe it falls away altogether. A space is created in the cadence of the familiar, and in that gap we find our true voice. Think of it as a quiet conversation between friends, but the friends reside between the same set of ears. It’s as essential in our days as brushing our teeth or building something of substance with the tools available to us at this moment in our development.
Ritual places us on auto-pilot, offering clearly-defined stepping stones in our day that carry us to a place we very much want to arrive at. We’ve all seen what happens to the days that lack ritual: they slip away into lost opportunity. Indeed, we may wonder either way; “Where did the day go?”, but with ritual we’ve at least tackled a few of the things we most needed to to make that day a success.
At the end of the day, isn’t it fair to ask if our time was productive? And where is our most essential work but on ourselves? Ritual gives us a leg to stand on. We lift ourselves up from the our previous state and get on with the business of becoming. We’re rewarded for the rituals we fold into our lives with the delight in becoming who we’ve wanted to be. And also in those moments of profound richness the ritual itself offers.
“It matters not where or how far you travel—the farther commonly the worse—but how much alive you are.” — Henry David Thoreau
Sitting outside, listening to birdsong in the magic hour before the world shook the cobwebs off, I watched a couple of large birds fluttering tree-to-tree. I wondered at them, thinking perhaps pileated woodpeckers who tend to behave this way, or maybe a couple of young turkeys waking up from their roost. Definitely not hawks on the hunt. Black and white with a bit of duck-like appearance to them, I quickly exhausted my list of possibilities and remained mystified. The binoculars and camera remained safely in the house where they offered the least amount of help in the moment. So I quietly thanked them for their visit and released them from my attention as they worked their way away from my own perch. I may find out yet who my visitors were, but it wasn’t our moment for a proper introduction.
We aren’t meant to know everything, but we ought to be curious. We all seek answers in this world. We climb to high summits, fly to faraway places, seek solace in the new. Shouldn’t we celebrate the world as it comes to us? Why do we feel compelled to fly across the globe? Because we know it’s out there, and like those birds, once we’re aware of that fact we want to know a bit more about it.
Thoreau traveled too, he just wasn’t collecting frequent flyer miles or navigating security lines. He sought faraway places relative to his time and place, traveling to Cape Cod and Maine and paddling down the Concord and then up the Merrimack Rivers. He sought what was just out of reach just as we do. Credit the pace of travel if you will, but he didn’t postpone his aliveness for when he arrived at his destination, he encountered it in each moment along the way. Shouldn’t we do the same?
“I try to be good but sometimes a person just has to break out and act like the wild and springy thing one used to be. It’s impossible not to remember wild and want it back.” — Mary Oliver, Green, Green is My Sister’s House
If we’re lucky, we never really grow up, we just get a bit more creative with our diversions. I used to crave responsibility, now I try to build enough flexibility in my schedule to chase waterfalls. Intense curiosity about the world around us is the key. Life is a quest, after all, adulting be damned. What are we wild things to do but seek adventure where we might find it?
“In conclusion, it appears that nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in distant countries.” ― Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle
Adventure is easier when you’re on the road. You see things all the time that stir your soul. It’s much harder when you’re working in an office or sheltered in place at home. If we don’t venture out into the world we’ll never find out what we’ve been missing. Charles Darwin found adventure on the other side of the world, Henry David Thoreau found it a short walk from his bed. Adventure isn’t about how far you go, it’s about getting out of your own shell. What is a shell but a prison of our own making?
Wild is always stirring about inside of us. We must want it back in our lives enough to seek it. The world will always ask for everything we’ve got. We ought to be the wild thing that rebels against that and turns towards adventure instead.
“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” ― G.K. Chesterton
Admittedly, I’m tired writing this. Two weeks of travel and burning the candle at both ends and I’m worn out. But that’s why we dance with coffee, isn’t it? To press ahead just a bit further.
The thing is, we’ve had a couple of years to reset. We all did the best we could under the circumstances. Getting back to whatever this normal is gives us a chance to stretch our imagination more. To find new adventures just around the corner, and to have the gumption to venture much farther. Not to fill our InstaGram feed or gain subscribers, but to shake loose of the cobwebs of the commonplace and experience the world.
“Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures.” — Henry David Thoreau
Who ever looks back with pride on a moment when you decided to sleep in instead of dancing with adventure? We ought to consider life an adventure and do more with that notion. We ought to rise and seek more from our days, for we only have so many to work with. We’ve spent time with people on their deathbed who literally can’t go outside to see the stars, who are we to complain about stepping out into the world? Dance with the gift of freedom. Be part of something livelier.
“Who can guess the luna’s sadness who lives so briefly? Who can guess the impatience of stone longing to be ground down, to be part again of something livelier? Who can imagine in what heaviness the rivers remember their original clarity? Strange questions, yet I have spent worthwhile time with them. And I suggest them to you also, that your spirit grow in curiosity, that your life be richer than it is, that you bow to the earth as you feel how it actually is, that we—so clever, and ambitious, and selfish, and unrestrained— are only one design of the moving, the vivacious many.” — Mary Oliver, The Moth, The Mountains, The Rivers
We all have our shackles of responsibility and routine. We can bend our days to find adventure while still honoring our core responsibilities. And we should question our routines when they hold our rambunctious spirit in place. Consider, for a moment, that convenience is a shackle disguised as a mindset.
‘Cause it’s a bittersweet symphony, that’s life Tryna make ends meet You’re a slave to money then you die I’ll take you down the only road I’ve ever been down You know the one that takes you to the places Where all the veins meet yeah No change, I can change I can change, I can change But I’m here in my mold I am here in my mold But I’m a million different people From one day to the next I can’t change my mold No, no, no, no, no Have you ever been down? — The Verve, Bitter Sweet Symphony
Do you hear Thoreau’s “quiet desperation” quote in your head reading the lyrics of Bitter Sweet Symphony? This song exploded in the mid-1990’s, becoming a theme song of sorts for Generation X and maybe some of those who followed. How do the lyrics hold up, almost three decades later? I think it depends on how well you’ve broken free of your mold.
Breaking free of that mold you’ve been cast in and following your heart is reckless. The very idea of breaking free disrupts all you’ve built around you. For what is a mold but that? Our very place in this world is determined by where we place ourselves. Life is change and moving beyond our old self. We must grow and see where the road takes us. Where our heart takes us.
Watching people you care about quickly turn from vibrantly alive to quickly sliding into the next triggers an urgency to break molds. To do the things you’ve been putting off and live today. This is what the stoics have been telling us all along. Memento Mori. Carpe Diem.
Get after it already. Follow the road where all your veins meet. We can all change.
“The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry into their secrets, and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there.”― Henry David Thoreau, The Maine Woods
The White Mountains of New Hampshire are my destination of choice when I seek “unfinished parts of the globe” close to home. Lately I haven’t summited many mountains, what with life and all. But I still seek them out and hope for more time to pry into their secrets.
I took the easy route for the sunrise picture below, standing beside a large window at the Mount Washington Hotel and immersed in Victorian elegance while looking out at the Presidential Range. Opting for the quick picture instead of hiking up to greet them in person might seem like cheating. Not very daring or insolent at all, really. But then again, the picture wasn’t going to wait for me to exit the building, let alone climb a trail. And so here it is, reflections and all, to remind me that there are mountains still to climb. Should we dare to go there.
“On every side, the eye ranged over successive circles of towns, rising one above another, like the terraces of a vineyard, till they were lost in the horizon. Wachusett is, in fact, the observatory of the State. There lay Massachusetts, spread out before us in its length and breadth, like a map. There was the level horizon, which told of the sea on the east and south, the well-known hills of New Hampshire on the north, and the misty summits of the Hoosac and Green Mountains, first made visible to us the evening before, blue and unsubstantial, like some bank of clouds which the morning wind would dissipate, on the northwest and west. These last distant ranges, on which the eye rests unwearied, commence with an abrupt boulder in the north, beyond the Connecticut, and travel southward, with three or four peaks dimly seen. But Monadnock, rearing its masculine front in the northwest, is the grandest feature.
As we beheld it, we knew that it was the height of land between the two rivers, on this side the valley of the Merrimack, or that of the Connecticut, fluctuating with their blue seas of air,—these rival vales, already teeming with Yankee men along their respective streams, born to what destiny who shall tell? Watatic, and the neighboring hills in this State and in New Hampshire, are a continuation of the same elevated range on which we were standing. But that New Hampshire bluff,–that promontory of a State,—lowering day and night on this our State of Massachusetts, will longest haunt our dreams.” — Henry David Thoreau, A Walk to Wachusett
Mount Wachusett is a glaciated monadnock, standing 2006 feet tall. Like her neighbor to the northwest, Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire, Mount Wachusett stands watch over the landscape that bows before her. You can’t talk about one mountain without mentioning the other, for they are forever kindred spirits in the landscape. Both mountains are uniquely positioned so that their waters flow to the Merrimack River from one side and to the Connecticut River from the other. The waters from each river run in my blood, which made a hike to the summit a sort of homecoming for me. And yet, for all the hikes I’ve done on Monadnock, I’d never hiked Wachusett.
This was a month where the weather continued to disappoint those who dream of deep snow drifts, while thrilling those who pine for a mild winter. Count me in the camp of the former: I wanted nothing more than to fly across snow plains this winter. A heavy snowfall the day before offered one last chance for the month. But it was quickly apparent that this was a micro spike hike, and the snow shoes were left behind yet again.
From the Visitor’s Center, you can easily summit Mount Wachusett in under 30 minutes. But that wasn’t our goal. Instead we took the Bicentennial Trail around the eastern slope to High Meadow Trail, up through a stand of Hemlocks to the Pine Hill Trail. Fluffy snow over ice creates uncertain footing, and we slowed our pace to mitigate the risk of injury. For a time, the only break in the trail ahead was from a porcupine, who’s distinct tail marked the trail in footprints and swirly plows. It seems most people cut to the chase and scramble up the mountain. We were more inclined to linger with it, to get to know it better. To feel what Thoreau felt when he and Richard Fuller hiked here from Concord, set up their tent atop the lonely summit, and had the place to themselves for a night.
Wachusett’s summit has changed since Thoreau’s time. There’s a ski slope on one side, there’s a mountain road you can drive up in the warmer months to see the view without earning it, and there’s ample parking for those cars. A few towers, including an observation tower, complete the scene. I wonder, reading Thoreau’s account, where did they pitch their tent and read Virgil by the light of a summer full moon?
Winter snow obscures much of the impact of man, but you’re still clearly in a manmade world when you’re on the summit of Mount Wachusett. To return to nature you must seek the trails that criss-cross around the reservation. But the views are largely the same as they were for Thoreau’s 180 years ago. Just as it was for him, Monadnock stands prominently as the grandest feature of the 360 degree view.
Inevitably we left with more to see, trails and old growth forest to explore another day. For this day I found what I was looking for. Time with an old friend hiking trails I’d always meant to get to one day. And a glimpse into a world Thoreau would find both foreign yet comfortably familiar. Wachusett is timelessly accessible, but somehow always felt apart from the mountains I sought out. We finally got acquainted with one another.
Summit tower, Mount Wachusett Distinctive porcupine tracks mark the trailPlenty of exposed granite despite the snowWhich way do we go? Plenty of choices.
