Hawkeye is fed up with the trail in New York. He found himself cursing the rocks, the trail, and the sadists that built it. His spontaneous outburst surprised him. Then he found another hiker with the same experience of spontaneous foul outbursts and felt relief that it wasn't just him.
Don's Brother blogs about several frustrating days of rock scrambles, invisible trail and tumbles.
Spirit is very eager to be done with New York, where so many roads and state parks prohibit RVs, even our little 23 footer.
I too have been surprised by moments of frustration and my own verbal outbursts.
There are lots of sources. Blame it on the heat and humidity that turns us into dripping, stinky, grouchy hikers. Add in hundreds of mosquito bites a day.
Maybe it's the emotional fatigue after three months, knowing we still face two more (even longer for me). Or seeing other hikers quit even after all these miles.
Maybe it is the needless ups and downs. Or the rocks that pummel my feet and tumbled me four times yesterday. Or the stench of my body, my clothes, my sleeping bag. Or couscous and quinoa.
I talk to a trail maintainer who got in trouble for removing rocks from the trail. It seems that the trail overlords, hikers from the 80's who are now too old to hike, want the conditions to be challenging and guard against making it too soft. They move rocks into the trail and re-route the trail into boulder fields. Seriously?
I reflect on Right Speech according to Buddhist Noble Path. I learned the importance of it traveling in Buddhist countries a few years ago. I didn't appreciate it before then. I thought witty comments and banter was fun, not noticing the damage from acerbic one-liners, or offensiveness of coarse language. I wish I had noticed the negative aspect of my so-called wit during my school-age years, and again as I engaged my sons in verbal jousting. I have since curbed the biting wit, though the coarse language returned at work.
Speech, thoughts and actions are all important (and parts of the Nobel Path). I previously figured actions speak louder than words, so figured they didn't matter so much. I learned the role of all three in conditioning the mind. Whatever you repeat you increase, and the plastic brain rewires itself. Unknowingly I was letting connections between speech and compassion fade at the expense of wiring associations to my own feelings of cleverness. Neuroscience now refers to this as "what fires together wires together". Even idle chatter and gossip are cautioned against in Right Speech, especially chatter about yourself and unkind gossip about others.
The silence of the trail is good. It helps me manage Right Speech and focus on Right Thoughts. At least until I hear my spontaneous outburst at the trail builders "Aw come on, what the hell were you thinking?".
I'm a work in process. I push hard 21.7 miles just to get out of New York and stop a few feet inside Connecticut. There, I don't have to curse at New York anymore.
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