Wild-eyed
~ wonderment & wanderlust ~

Glacier Peak Wilderness © Ken James McLeod

There have been times in my life when I was young and brash and I didn't care whether I lived or died, so I walked upon the earth with little regard to where I was going. It mattered not how far I traveled from cilvilization into rugged terrain or wilderness, because the only thing that really did matter lay at my feet and in my face, what only my hands could grasp and my mind could touch...raw exposed alpine land...that was my reality; not the daily discourse of the concrete jungle. And during those times, I thought nothing of the future, only the lure of the next wild adventure into the mountains, totally absorbed and consumed in my environment at hand. After many miles, many routes, and many adventures, I sat down upon the good earth in a far-off secluded place where few men had ever ventured before, and thought deeply . . .

Mountains and wild places have a way of humbling a person, transforming their inner self as time passes by. Moreover, one finds that they are not so mighty and are only made of flesh and bone, rather miniscule in the grand picture of things to say the least. But in the wild of the mountains one can find inner strength, because one does not "bullshit" those environs, one has to become apart of it, accepting it and overcoming it. Otherwise, you are toast. Thus, coming to this conclusion, one finds that life is indeed worth living.

As an older man, I now see things more clearly...like the "Old Inuit Song" sings, "there is only one great thing, the only thing, to live to see the great day that dawns and the light that fills the world."

KJM

Aug. 15, 2009

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