Mt. You

While I was baking in the Californian desert, I had a lot of time to read. I finished the book I had brought within the first few days of training. I thought I might just have to sit around without anything compelling to do for the rest of my time there, or borrow another Marine's book which no doubtably would have been an intense action or spy novel which isn't really my cup of tea. To my surprise, a Marine in my squad brought a book called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig and thankfully this Marine was also very social and allowed me to take his book away from him most of the time we got a chance to read. I had heard about this book just recently from a friend who recommended it, so I eagerly read it, just finishing before boarding the plane to come back home from training. The book at its basic form is about a man who took his son on a motorcycle trip across America one summer. It is also a philosophy book.

As I was reading it, a few things really struck a chord with me and reminded me of several of the statements I wrote about why I desire to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. These statements are: 

- To spend a significant amount of time away from many of the conveniences of the modern day.

- To be away from the irksome obligations of paying bills, keeping schedules, etc.

- To have a time away from many of the temptations and distractions in my current life.

- To get away from the many apathy-creating and life-destroying ways of life that hallmark today's standard living.

One of the big issues that Pirsig tackles in this book is the way technology can make people feel detached, irritable, and even dehumanized. I am not sure if everyone feels this way about technology at some point or other in their life, but I am willing to bet that deep down if everyone were honest with themselves, they could find some technology that disturbs their inner-lives, the quality of their spiritual, emotional, and intellectual selves. My wife really enjoys her mornings as a time to be quiet, deep, prayerful, and contemplative, but when the computer is on and I am scrolling fast-paced through Facebook and obnoxious YouTube videos are playing, this sort of environment is threatened. 

Pirsig certainly wouldn't say that technology is inherently bad just as say, money and guns aren't inherently bad. Sometimes their power and ease of use simply makes it irresistible for humans to use them in ways and for reasons that arguably diminish the quality of one's and others' lives. I find myself using that word 'quality' a lot and that is because the book is fundamentally trying to answer the question, 'what is quality?' That question is inescapable when talking about these things, and I will not venture to answer it in this small blog post. Read the book if you want to know more about that.

At the beginning of the book Pirsig writes about the normal modern life and how our consciousnesses might be affected by the technology of today, such as the television and radio. Unquestionably, the Internet would be added to that list if the book hadn't been written in the 70s. He writes: 

We're in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it's all gone. Now that we do have some time, and know it, I would like to use the time to talk in some depth about things that seem important. What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua—that's the only name that I can think of for it—like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, […] an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. The old channels cannot contain it and in its search for new ones there seems to be growing havoc and destruction along its banks. In this Chautauqua I would like not to cut any new channels of consciousness but simply dig deeper into old ones that have become silted in with the debris of thoughts grown stale and platitudes too often repeated. "What's new?" is an interesting and broadening eternal question, but one which, if pursued exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion, the silt of tomorrow. I would like, instead, to be concerned with the question "What is best?," a question which cuts deeply rather than broadly, a question whose answers tend to move the silt downstream. There are eras of human history in which the channels of thought have been too deeply cut and no change was possible, and nothing new ever happened, and "best" was a matter of dogma, but that is not the situation now. Now the stream of our common consciousness seems to be obliterating its own banks, losing its central direction and purpose, flooding the lowlands, disconnecting and isolating the highlands and to no particular purpose other than the wasteful fulfillment of its own internal momentum. Some channel deepening seems called for.

 It is mainly this shallowness of web-surfing and Facebook and television that I find so difficult to break away from most of the time. It wastes my time without seeming necessary or edifying and hiking the Trail will be a nice break from it. However, I would like to develop a character that does not succumb to the temptation of spending countless hours online watching funny videos. I would like to be someone who more readily prays for three hours straight or decides to devote a few hours of thinking about what makes something quality. If you have made it through reading this far I congratulate you. Most of the time, if I saw a blog post this long, I would skip or skim it. And that is revealing of a problem within myself. Once I got rid of my computer and for several months I was limited to an hour online at the library if I wanted to walk there. I read a lot more books, but I didn't do a lot of the things I  thought the computer was keeping me from. This is because it was not the computers fault. It was my own. I can use the computer to develop as a writer by writing blog posts or I can mindlessly play Angry Birds. I can watch a YouTube clip about building a DIY camp stove and actually detach myself from the couch and do it or I can watch another clip of somebody falling of a table or pulling of a really great prank. 

I was going to include a lot more quotes about how technology cuts us off from becoming people of greater quality, but I will leave it at that because I can provide quotes or my own story as a testament of my ideas all day long, but in reality, you have to see it in your own life if you are going to agree with me or attempt to struggle against the kind of conscious technology may have created in you as in me. 

I will transition now to something else Pirsig wrote about, but it is really all the same thing since it is all interrelated just as all my reasons for hiking the Trail are interrelated. Besides the ones listed above and one about becoming physically stronger, the rest are spiritual reasons. But the spiritual and technological one go hand-in-hand. During their motorcycle trip, Pirsig and his son hiked up a mountain just as my wife and I will do on the Trail for six months straight. The way we relate to technology creates us as a certain way and when we are hiking the trail we will still be this certain way and so technology can still have an adverse affect on us while we are hiking even though we are away from it. We may be largely detached from it for six months, but the fact is that for over twenty years it has permeated our worlds in a big way.  

Pirsig says, "Mountains . . . and travelers in the mountains and events that happen to them are found . . . in the tales of every major religion. The allegory of a physical mountain for the spiritual one that stands between each soul and its goal is an easy and natural one to make. Like those in the valley behind us, most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardship."

I definitely do not want to live all my life with that mountain staring down at me and so we will climb. We just have to be careful about the way that we climb. Pirsig writes about two kinds of climbers. One selfless and the other an ego-climber who is trying to prove something to himself/herself and/or others. Pirsig writes:

To the untrained eye ego-climbing and selfless climbing may appear identical. Both kinds of climbers place one foot in front of the other. Both breathe in and out at the same rate. Both stop when tired. Both go forward when rested. But what a difference! The ego-climber is like an instrument that’s out of adjustment. He puts his foot down an instant too soon or too late. He’s likely to miss a beautiful passage of sunlight through the trees. He goes on when the sloppiness of his step shows he’s tired. He rests at odd times. He looks up the trail trying to see what’s ahead even when he knows what’s ahead because he just looked a second before. He goes too fast or too slow for the conditions and when he talks his talk is forever about somewhere else, something else. He’s here but he’s not here. He rejects the here, he’s unhappy with it, wants to be farther up the trail but when he gets there will be just as unhappy because then *it* will be “here.” What he’s looking for, what he wants, is all around him, but he doesn’t want that because it *is* all around him. Every step’s an effort, both physically and spiritually, because he imagines his goal to be external and distant.

It will be difficult, through the aching legs, the rain, and the monotony of seeing one tree after another to be truly in the present and not long for the next resupply town when we can get cold drinks and hot showers. It will be difficult not to picture us standing on Mt. Katahdin at the end or what we will do after we are finished hiking the Trail. It will be difficult to enjoy each and every step along the way and to realize that this whole thing is not about that ending moment, but about each and every part of the Trail itself.  

In closing, I will leave you with another quote. For those of you hiking a mountain called Katahdin or Everest take heed, for those of you hiking a mountain called Josh or Sarah also take heed.

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here's where things grow. But of course, without the top you can't have any sides. It's the top that defines the sides. So on we go . . . we have a long way . . . no hurry . . . just one step after the next . . . with a little Chautauqua for entertainment. . . . Mental reflection is so much more interesting than TV it's a shame more people don't switch over to it. They probably think what they hear is unimportant but it never is.