If we were to itemize the things of greatest value in our
lives we would nearly all answer our family and friends. Maybe we would be more
specific and answer something along the lines of ‘my relationship with my kids’
or ‘time spent with loved ones.’
While
it may be true that these are in fact the things that mean the most to us, the answer
would most certainly be different if we were to rephrase the question: “if your
house was burning down, what items would you grab on your way out?” Then your
answer may change to something of sentimental value; a photo album, a letter
from your wife in high school, maybe your record collection… You could also ask
what are the most monetarily valuable things in your home? You may answer your
TV, your furniture, your jewelry.
Where
it becomes interesting is if you were to be asked the question in third person:
“What does your brother value most?” When you look at what another person may
value most you find yourself categorizing it in a different way. Instead of
viewing items or relationships with attachment to a specific world view or
emotion, you begin to measure value by the things said person seems to have a
particular interest in or the ways an interest can consume their life.
“Take
what you need and leave what you don’t” I’d say to myself if I knew I would be
hiking twenty miles a day through mountainous terrain. If I knew I had to carry
every item of ‘value’ on my back with every step I took, the light in which I view
what is valuable would be quite different. I might instead value the basic
necessities like food, clean water, warmth, and shelter.
Its often stated when someone ventures off on
a hike or even a vacation that they just want to ‘escape it all.’ The, for lack
of a better word, value in hiking or camping is that you detach yourself from
the burdens and weight of every day life that we seem to habitually carry. How
can you receive work emails or phone calls if you have no phone or internet
connection? How can you get a bill in the mail if you don’t reside at an
address? How can you be stuck in traffic if you’ve pulled the key out of the
ignition and walked ten miles from the nearest road?
It all seems so great and simple. Shut
off, escape it all, clear your mind. But is it really effective? If you’re
addicted to alcohol, sex, social media, or reality TV, hiking or other means of
detachment don’t alleviate your addiction, they simply provide you with a
forced restraint. You can just as easily carry a flask full of whiskey with you
into the mountains. But even if you choose to deprive yourself of it for four
days in the wilderness, you will still inevitably return to a world where
whiskey exists.
Just simply detaching yourself from
your burdens or added weight does not ensure that you will not be once again
faced with the potential of reattaching to the burdens, it only briefly robs
you of your access. There is only one way to truly face your burdens, whether
they be physical addiction, emotional dependency, feelings of sorrow or hatred,
or even the every day stresses of work or relationships. But it is not in fact to
detach yourself from them, but to instead detach them from you.
If I want to shed the weight in my
pack so as to alleviate the pain that is an effect of the weight, I have to
quite simply shed the weight. I can only do this effectively if I empty out the
contents of my pack and limit it to the things which I see as most valuable to
achieve life. If ‘to live’ is the only requirement I deem necessary to spend a
week in the wilderness, I will carry only the weight necessary to achieve that
goal. If ‘to live’ is the only requirement I have for my day to day life in a society,
which has and will always provide me with whatever addiction or burden I
choose to carry, then I might not go back to the whiskey, the toxic relationship,
or the endless social media dribble. If I view myself in the third person, “What
does he value most?” I may find an ugly truth. What I value is not my family,
it is not the sentimental item from a loved one, and it is certainly not the
things I only require to live effectively. Instead what I value is the burden that
I choose to carry. It is what I choose to consume myself with; hate, fear,
anger, sadness, pride. All things unnecessary for life. All causes for addiction,
helpless dependency, and pain. All values I nor anyone else can afford to carry.
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