The Way Forward
Rambles
“Take the hit as a gift”
—George Leonard
In this Ramble:
Short, because, well, 2020
1) For Such
The map lied.
No, it didn’t. The map did not lie.
The map just reached the limit of truth it was able to tell.
Now you’re here, which, as near as you can tell, is somewhere past the big bend in the dotted line on the map marked “trail”. But not yet at the small waterfall in the mountain stream the guidebook mentioned. Unless you missed the waterfall, which, well, possible. Even if that stream has been your left handrail since you hit it.
Doesn’t help that you have no idea how far you have come. And thus no idea how far left to go. Dead reckoning? Not with as often as the elevation was changing in the early part. Threw off your stride length. And the kids. Running ahead, running behind. Checking out everything around them. “Don’t get too close…” “Watch…” They’re playing a dipping game with their walking sticks. They get points every time they can touch water with the sticks. Puddle. Bank on the stream. The trickle making its way down leaves, collecting in the groove this trickle, and the others like it before, are marking inexorably in the great stones of the mountain, and then finally becoming enough moving water to be a brook moving towards the stream on your left.
That brook sounds just like you think it does.
Worth points too. The boy dipped his walking stick in it, and announced he had unlocked an achievement and leveled up. His sister was underwhelmed, although she dipped her stick in as well. Turns out she’s at a slightly higher level already.
The boy disputes this.
Doesn’t ever seem to matter that the points and titles are all made up anyways. Not when one of them decides they are the most important in that moment.
His sister isn’t even playing, so the level doesn’t even matter.
Yet she has to dip her stick every time he does.
Can’t leave until they have got every point possible.
Dead reckoning. How were you going to hold a stride count for dead reckoning?
She had a good idea though. Turns out the health app you never use counts steps and distance. Subtract what you think you walked getting everyone to the car and to the trail, and you can ballpark how far you have come.
Just an estimate though.
Doesn’t tell you what you really want to know. How long is this switchback? They go for miles on these mountains sometimes. Sometimes steep. Sometimes over broken terrain. Some are so long that you question if it’s worth it. If you’re lucky, they come with a bit of shade. Or maybe a break in the trees, where you can pause. Almost a miracle. You get just a glimpse through the trees along the switchback, but it’s enough. It’s fall here, and you can see miles over a canopy of red and gold and yellow. When the wind catches it right, there’s a slow wave across the trees, like a ripple in wheat growing in a field. A golden wave, in regal pace. The mountain, the forest—they have been here a long time. They will be here, rippling in the breeze like this, long after your hike is over.
Those moments renew. Amazing how much strength and will you can recover in those instants.
Without them, it’s just the word of the guidebook, promising something on this trail worth these switchback trials. Some view. Some destination of sorts. They tend to be circumspect on what to expect though. “Moderate difficulty.” Maybe a total mileage and elevation change. A few things to look for on the way.
You wonder what the others on this mountain did. How they picked the trails they are doing. Not everyone starts or ends in the same place. For a few, it’s enough to set out. Others might be using different books. Was theirs better? More detailed? Picked a better spot, a better trail’s end? Never know. Some of them probably have guides—someone who has walked the trail before and can tell them exactly what to expect. Exactly what is waiting for them.
“Yes, this part is hard, but the next part is downhill and in the shade, with a little brook running through it.”
“But it has the perfect view at the end… Just a little more… Don’t give up now… Just a little more.”
You were not that lucky. No guides. No detailed knowledge of the ground ahead. How much further. How much longer. How arduous. Would the juice be worth the squeeze.
Sola fide, guidebook. At least the guy who wrote it has been here before right? And someone left this worn trail.
You could turn back. You could. The way down is easier, the path always seems wider and faster. But you have already been through some of those valleys. The light doesn’t reach the bottom of them, and they are cold. Slick with moss and mushrooms, and the smell of dark, overturned soil, like Pennsylvania black earth where just the carbon and the coal remains.
Besides, you would know you quit. Gave up and took the easy route. As difficult as the trail is now, at least you’ll know if the end was worth it. The other way is just a moment of joy, followed by a long time wondering “what if?”
They’re still playing the dipping game. They jump like sprites around a brook. She’s still counting steps on the phone.
You’ll take them with you. Whichever way you go, you’ll take them with you.
Climb on.
Could be harder up ahead, sure.
Could be easier too.
And there’s only one way to know.
When you get back, you’ll write this up.
I know what you’ll call it.
“For such is the kingdom of God.”
“The road of excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom.”
—William Blake
This quote triggered me, and now you, dear reader, reap the whirlwind you did not sow.
Life is unfair like that sometimes.
I stumbled on this quote, almost literally, as its truth was not immediately obvious to me.
Wisdom implies virtue, or at least the knowledge of virtue and vice. If that is true, how does one encounter temperance and prudence on the road to wisdom? Temperance, in particular, should be at the very least in the other direction, if not the other road entirely, from one called “excess.”
However, a sliding scale between virtue and vice is precisely what Aristotle described in “Ethics.” The argument Aristotle made was that excess in either direction was equally wrong, and the balanced, ethical, truly virtuous was just virtuous enough. For example, an excess of “courage” could cause one to take unnecessary risk, or be more courageous than necessary. Like diving in front of an out of control bus to save the baby carriage—despite knowing the baby was NOT in the carriage. Courageous, yes. Effort worth the courage? Well, the carriage is replaceable. On the other hand, an excess of cowardice is difficult to argue as “virtuous.” NOT diving in front of the bus to rescue the baby, for example. But how to know when one has just enough virtue, and no more? Aristotle had no hard answers. Merely guidelines.
In that sense, is the path of excess guiding to wisdom? Do you only learn the right “settings” for your virtues by going too far in them, or not far enough (excess in the other direction)? Lived experience, then, that dark groping path with many accidental (and perhaps not so accidental) excesses is the guide to wisdom?
Similar to Aristotle, the speaker in Ecclesiastes searches for the best way to live. At first, Qoleth’s path is very Blake. Wild excess in everything. But the speaker systematically rejects all of the excesses as “vanity”—a “chase of the wind.” In that way, yes, the road of excess led to the palace of wisdom. Deliberate in excess, Qoleth has the the experience to know that none of the extremes truly satisfied. Again, lived experience defined excess. Only going too far gained the wisdom to know what “too far” really was—and led to.
Aristotle landed on his “sliding scale” of virtue and vice, where the optimum is excess of neither. The author of Ecclesiastes lands similarly: “Be not just to excess and be not over wise . . . Be not wicked to excess and be not foolish”. After all, no one understands addiction as viscerally and completely as the addict. And you may not recognize excess until you have reached it—or its consequences.
Having seen, or lived, what excess wrought, the wisdom was “yeah, maybe don’t do –that-“. Only those who hit “excess” really know what excess is like—and the toll it may exact from you or others.
There are bitter, melancholy notes in Blake, and Aristotle, and Ecclesiastes though, no?
Perhaps that is why the ancients elevated temperance and prudence to the classic virtues. After all, the admonition is not to walk the road of excess yourself deliberately. Neither Aristotle nor Qoleth say to try it all, and this is how you become wise. Excess, we are told, has been tried, weighed, and found wanting. There is nothing new under the sun. Instead, the path to the Palace of Wisdom was carved and hewn, paved with tears and ruin, by excess.
Watch the edges. Keep as close to the middle of that road as you can…
Balancing art by Michael Grab:
And a bonus (for the lyrics alone):
Talk to you later,
<Paladin>
(featured image is original)