CCXXVI - Tramping

New Zealand is not a one trip country. Grayhair said that. You know, it's probably true. Tramping isn't easy, I'll be honest. I've carried loads of maybe twenty kilograms during the army days, but those were mostly route marches over pretty flat ground, easy trail. Of course we also had the navigation exercises with gun, pretty tough, outfield training and all that, but you know, it's a little bit different being out here in the cold and wet and crossing streams and going up and down. Well, the rolling stone gathers no moss. The fun thing is that it's exciting country. There's all kinds of terrain and texture. You slog through one and before you get too bored of one type, you get another to plow through. So there's that, a bit of variety. It's not bad. The dry food sucks though. I don't like it. I'll have to think of bringing something I can properly cook. Over a little butane propane stove haha. Well we'll see I guess. 

New Zealand is not a one trip country. Singaporeans are rare, the warden says. We've run into seven, count 'em, seven Israelis on the trail. Six Germans. Not sure where that leaves us. But they were all friendly as the dickens, man. Grayhair from Yorkshire, been in Alaska thirty years. Probably seen a little for every gray hair he has. Good man, makes a mean Alaskan hot chocolate. An American, a sharp tool kinda guy. Him and the German girl met in a supermarket getting trail food, go figure. They all love their card games, Messaken, Shithead and Dutch. The Israelis teach you funny things. They say you get, what's the word, addicted to life on the trail. That's the funny one. He says he's been a year on the road, circled Israel, did two thousand in his boots. No kidding. The taller one, he's a good dude. Guffaws while playing his Dutch. It's funny how they're travelled and youthful at the same time. Kinda the opposite of us. Well, it is what it is. The hut murmurs with a constant stream of foreign tongues, in a gentle, breezy sort of way. We talk politics, science, work, health insurance, accidents, vegetables, nutrition, tough tramps, family. The vibe is chill and conversational, informative and sharp. Honest. Everybody has a story, and a good one. Their words and faces, their chortles and laughs linger for a few days, when the trail grows quiet. The people you meet on the trail, you kinda think you were meant to meet, and maybe only on the trail.

You know, they say New Zealand is not a one trip country. Socrates was right, life doesn't teach you things, it reminds you of things you already knew. I'm starting to believe them. The food, I've gotta work on, though. Well, I will. Not a one trip kinda town.

Walk along the river, sweet lullaby
They just keep on flowin', they don't worry 'bout where it's goin', no, no
Don't fly, mister blue bird, I'm just walkin' down the road
Early morning sunshine, tell me all I need to know 

You're my blue sky, you're my sunny day
Lord, you know it makes me high
When you turn your love my way
Turn your love my way, yeah

CCXXV - lost, forever

I would like to think of children as little "geniuses". That is perhaps, more than anything, the difference between the way I think of them, and how everyone usually thinks of them. Yes, they are foolish, but think of them as little marvelous wunderkinds. I say this because they have something wonderful which we do not have - they have a little imagination. And of course, being little, they do not have anything close to understanding. The precocious few may grasp experiences and concepts a little better, but without having really lived and truly aged, they cannot really place what they see in their minds.

Well, we on the other hand are hopelessly reversed. We have a little understanding, but we have almost no imagination. Perhaps none at all. On my part, I have forgotten more of my own imagining than I will ever learn elsewhere. And the thing is, while we can share understanding, while we can shape knowledge and concepts into pieces that even children can grasp, it is a silly thing to imagine that they can share their imagination with us.

The truth is that once old, the imagination is lost, forever. Our eyes see clearly in dimension - shape, size and colour - the mind takes clearly and almost literally, but together they do not intuitively conceive the strangeness of life, nor take curiosity at the mystery of existence and the motions of life, and the serendipitous and the bizarre that goes unnoticed. And will we ever again wonder if there is not some deeper magic behind the curtains, not some furtive elves and crafty hobgoblins at work, tinkering between the spaces, not some enchanted explanation for how little things putter along and big things balloon. Father Science gives experiential reason and persuades the rational mind; he puts to the sword all things hoodoo and hocus pocus, and takes by force the imagination to compel it into servitude. Forsooth, a bound imagination is merely one in name.

“Alas! what are you, after all, my written and painted thoughts! Not long ago you were so variegated, young and malicious, so full of thorns and secret spices, that you made me sneeze and laugh — and now? You have already doffed your novelty, and some of you, I fear, are ready to become truths, so immortal do they look, so pathetically honest, so tedious! And was it ever otherwise? What then do we write and paint, we mandarins with Chinese brush, we immortalizers of things which lend themselves to writing, what are we alone capable of painting? Alas, only that which is just about to fade and begins to lose its odour! Alas, only exhausted and departing storms and belated yellow sentiments! Alas, only birds strayed and fatigued by flight, which now let themselves be captured with the hand — with our hand! We immortalize what cannot live and fly much longer, things only which are exhausted and mellow! And it is only for your afternoon, you, my written and painted thoughts, for which alone I have colours, many colours, perhaps, many variegated softenings, and fifty yellows and browns and greens and reds; — but nobody will divine thereby how ye looked in your morning, you sudden sparks and marvels of my solitude, you, my old, beloved — evil thoughts!”

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1886)