one year later - the blog gets ugly

foreword: this blog post is as if a train that was transporting dumpsters that were all on fire got in a collision with another train carring other dumpsters with other fires. to make things worse, one wonders why trains carrying the exact same cargo are going in opposite directions.

a year ago yesterday, i was in georgia taking my first steps on the appalachian trail amidst the backdrop of the first days of the global pandemic. time is no longer linear. it’s now a series of bubbles. surrounding every event is the same before and the same afterward. as a result i can’t keep track of which events happened when.

the spring sun has begun to push back the ice and wind of winter. if you can find a sunny spot sheltered from the wind you can take your shirt off for some desperately needed vitamin d. moisture fills the air with the smell of soil and garlic planted in the fall noses it’s way into the light.

today however is cool, rainy, and foggy; exactly like my first day on trail, and i find myself nostalgic to be outside hiking again. i had hoped to re-attempt the trail this year, and with states starting to reopen it is tempting, but it’s clear to me that it is not yet time. as kai ryssdal likes to say “capitalism doesn’t care if you live or die.” and so the world reopens prior to it being completely safe to do so. it doesn’t mean that i must as well. i can be patient for as long as it takes, and as erin egan likes to say “the trail will still be there”. (she also had to postpone her 50th birthday year PCT through hike last year.)

i am planning on re-attempting next year, 2022. i’ve kept in touch with ian and just last night we were chatting about it. it seems he may also be on trail march 17th of 2022. that would be a trip. he seems to be a gem of a person. just watch his videos, you’ll see. also, fun easter egg: if you watch his first AT hiking video, when he gets to the top of springer mountain you’ll hear jingling. that’s the bells on my dogs’ collar who were along for the day! we officially met that night at the shelter.

“i’ll do some gear posts in the future, as i was helped tremendously by other through hikers posts and videos on what they carried and what changes they made while on trail.” — 410-gone, 2020-09-27

so it turns out that blogging is challenging like so very many things in that to do it you have to actually do it. i used to enjoy writing, and looking back at some of the things i wrote in school and just after school i was a halfway decent writer. reading through the blog today however i feel like i’ve lost so much skill. i think i’d like to write more, i think i’ll enjoy it again if i actually start doing it again. so this is a disclaimer of sorts. i’d like to write more. i recognize that at present i’m not the most compelling writer, and there are some things i’d like to say, which brings me to another point; i’d like to be a lot more honest in my writing. i don’t know how to navigate the line between writing and not upsetting people. i want to occasionally write about controversial things like politics, religion, people’s personalities, personal finance, financial independence / FIRE etc. but to be frank, i’m afraid. the world is so full of utter bullshit these days. people aren’t allowed to make mistakes. people aren’t allowed to learn from them. people aren’t allowed to evolve.

“you don’t have to believe everything you think.”

this whole universe where we all inhabit a planet spiraling through space on which we all have to coexist after having wildly disparate and painful histories is complicated. even just the thoughts in my own head on their own are complicated. i regularly think i have an answer only to minutes later come to the conclusion that it’s incorrect. add to that race, color, religion, sex, and national origin (the key groups of the civil rights act) not to mention sexual orientation, gender identity, or sexual identity which were things in 1964, but apparently not enough to be mentioned at the time and it’s all too easy to write something that upsets someone. i’m not saying i want to write theses on these topics, but things are pretty fucked up these days, like off the rails fucked, and i want to be on record to say i see it, and i want it to change.

i want to be clear here as well. i’m un-fucking believably privileged. and i know, every “woke” blogger has this bullshit moment where they come out as privileged. it’s a trope, and i hate it, but i clearly believe it’s necessary because i’m doing it. we humans are hard wired in such a way that when we have part of a picture, we fill in the rest, and that content comes from our imaginations. if it has any basis in reality, it’s the reality of the person doing the imagining rather than the person whose personality and history are being flushed out.

we are biased. we are judgmental. all the time. about everything. if you’re thinking “hey! i’m not judgmental!” i assure you, you’re incorrect. you literally just did it. we’re all judgmental. i am judgmental. all the time. about everything. the only way i think i can mitigate it is to see that it’s happening and actively work to counter it. you can’t fix what you can’t see. i think part of what practicing meditation teaches you is simply to see your constant unending judgment of everything. seeing the judgment and recognizing it as a judgment helps combat it’s effects.

so to circle back. for the record: i’m male, i’m white. i’ve been educated, and potentially more importantly i incurred no debt for it. i’ve had opportunities. i used these things to work hard and retire early. have i had some terrible things happen to me and around me? yeah. and you know what? none of that is relevant. white men in particular will often enumerate all the hurdles they had to overcome in a bid to seem more . . . something. relatable? i’ve been guilty of this. i can list a litany of bad things that have happened to me. for every bad thing that’s happened to you i can counter with a bad or worse thing that’s happened to me. it’s a pissing contest, and it’s all bullshit, because underneath it all i’m male, i’m white, i’ve been educated . . . et cetera. i’m trying to convince you that when i say “i’m unbelievably privileged” i see it, or at least i’m trying to see it.

so why all that? because i am furious that my life, my what seems to me unremarkable life, is privileged. everyone should have this level of privilege. full stop.

i have to leave this here, because i’ve been sitting here for at least a half hour typing curse riddled sentences about the pathetic misguided #alllivesmatter, #whitelivesmatter, #bluelivesmatter counter movements, deleting them, retyping them, and then deleting them again.

so it turns out this was a great example of what i was trying to get to 7 paragraphs ago: this blog is going to get ugly for a while, and i’m sorry for that. i want to write, and i’ve decided that i’m not going to let my fears of what people might think get in the way anymore. remember what i said earlier about our imaginations filling in the blanks saying more about the person doing the imagining than the thing where the blanks exist? yeah. i don’t know what it says about me, but since i don’t even know who this audience is, it sure as shit can’t be about you. i have all the feelings and at the moment no writing skill to harness or direct them. i hope you can be patient and stick with me while i work through it. i’m certain it’ll get better.

post script: through all this i had to correct every single instance of misspelling the word privelige. privilige. privilege. smh.