First of all, as a side note, everyone who hikes the Appalachian Trail (AT) has or obtains sometime along the way a trail name. Sometimes it is self-given, sometimes it is bestowed by other travelers along the way, and sometimes the trail makes it clear what one's trail name should be. For instance, I have given myself the trail name Earthman because both "earth" and "man" are definitions of my name, Adam, and that seems like an appropriate name for spending half a year in the wilderness, right? Well, while actually hiking the AT some other name might press itself upon me and I will change it, but until then I will be Earthman.
While I was reading a book called Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy I did not expect to come across anything about the AT since it is a deeply complicated and philosophical work written in an unusual way that I will have to read more than once to even attempt to begin to understand. However, Percy uses the AT as an example of a way humans attempt to use travel as a way of achieving some kind of bridge between the transcendence us humans seem to experience from time to time and what Einstein called "the intolerable dreariness of everyday life."
First of all, everyone seems to have these moments of transcendence, meaning they experience something beyond the physical or material level of the universe that is pretty mind-blowing. Often, it is something difficult to explain, except with inadequate language such as "discovering some kind of beauty, truth, love, understanding etc." Since I am a Christian, I may experience transcendence in prayer and solitude though if I was honest, I would admit that experiencing transcendence through these acts is rare. It simply takes much more effort to pray or be silent or be alone and listening and undistracted than I am willing to give. I think I achieve some kind of transcendence after reading a really good book or watching a really beautiful film and oftentimes I am excited if someone else also really enjoyed that book or film. However, if we begin to talk about it, we will divulge neat plot points or really great acting and not the actual stuff that caused the joy of transcendence. I think that is because it is really difficult to describe those bits, because they were transcendent-creating moments and quite inexplicable. I am left happy believing you shared those same kind of transcendent-type moments because our conversation about the book or film could never measure up to whatever it is that transported us up there to that level. Remember all those times you went to an awesome concert with friends who really enjoy that band too, but you never really talked about why you love them so much or how they made you feel? You let it go, or made some feeble small-talk about interesting trivia about the band instead. Of course, this makes sense because art entails a certain abstraction from its subject matter so how could one talk about it anyhow?
Percy writes, "But what is not generally recognized is that the successful launch of self into the orbit of transcendence is necessarily attended by problems of reentry. What goes up must come down. The best film of the year ends at nine o'clock. What to do at ten? What did Faulkner do after writing the last sentence of Light in August? Get drunk for a week. What did Dostoevsky do after finishing The Idiot? Spend three days and nights at the roulette table. What does the reader do after finishing either book? How long does his exaltation last?"
Sometimes it seems to last mere minutes. Remember the feeling you got from camp as a kid or that mission trip when you were a bit older? How long did that last? Do you remember feeling like you could change the world, that you were actually going to implement changes into your life, or at the very least that you simply felt very, very good? How long did any of those last?
How do we humans try to hang on to those experiences, those feelings, that level of living that seems to exist on a different plane, so far away from our normal day-to-day lives? Percy lists several ways we do and you'll have to pick up the book yourself (and I highly recommend you do) if you want to know what they all are, but one of them is travel. And an example of this travel that Percy provides is, you guessed it, hiking the Appalachian Trail.
So why is travel on the list? First of all, let me attempt to provide a brief explanation for why humans seem to make a big deal of transcendence, of experiencing such a high level of truth or beauty or understanding etc. We have a problem with our selves. We feel such levels of shame, guilt, poor self esteem, fear etc. that it simply drags through our entire consciousness and seems to taint our entire experience of life. When one is transcended, one does not feel any of those things. When we travel we get excited because we are going someplace completely new. The environment is new, the people are new, and we begin to see ourselves as new. We are excited by the possibility of becoming a new self, a better self, one without all the hangups in the old place. Anything can happen and we can recreate ourselves to be who we were not before because we don't have that history. After I walked the walls of my high school for three years I knew that during my senior year everyone would look at me the same way they always did. There was nothing I could do to change this. But my first day of college I could become anyone I wanted. Of course, it didn't take long for the excitement to wither when I realized I was becoming the same man I was before. Nothing much had changed.
So will anything change when I am hiking the Appalachian Trail? I will still be me. Some of my goals, the reasons why I am hiking the AT, rely on a dramatic change of myself. I will definitely physically change. But will I be more willing to sit in seclusion and listen to God? We will see. I am hopeful that since the environment will be dramatically different, I will have a greater shot at changing. I pray that my will to chase the transcendence of God will steadily increase and with it, the knowledge and grace of the God who can transform all things. Until then, oh my God, oh the intolerable dreariness of everyday life!
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