A Chautauqua of Sorts

So I was up in Utah with a couple of Christian buddies a few weeks ago. I woke up and started doing the breakfast thing, incidentally leaving my current reading endeavor face up on my sleeping bag as the other guys began stirring around inside the tent. It's dull green cover reads in simple white capital letters, "Zen and the Art of Mortorcycle Maintenance."

Out on the trail that day the guys joked with me a bit about being Buddhist, which I didn't mind knowing it was all in fun. But it did lead me to ask them, as well as myself, "What is it to be Zen and what's so bad about it?" I was surprised to hear that they didn't have much of an idea, and neither do I some 270 pages into the book. But then again I don't think the author would claim to have a firm understanding or dare give a definition of it either.



I have been reading through this book with an open and earnest mind, doing my best to give every train of thought of Robert M. Pirsig a sufficient amount of dwelling time, sifting through his ideas and information, and grasping onto that which I believe to be of value and worth and allowing it then to tweak my perspective towards the things.

So why is it sometimes looked down upon to have an open mind towards those things we are unfamiliar with?

And why do we look at those things that aren't deemed to align with the Christian religion as therefore against it?

Blabber

I was distracted by a non-sense article that was supposed to let me know if one of my slumping fantasy baseball players was going to turn things around or not, and a few clicked links later I came across this page.

Cognitive Decline Begins Around Age 27

I was interested first because I remember my friend Gregg telling me that once you hit 27, you really start feeling like an old man. What really caught my attention was the subtitle for the article that says:

The Peak of the Brain is at 22 Years of Age

So this means with this past birthday, you all better be willing to pay very close attention to what I have to say. If you're 22 like me, I'll respect you and listen to your opinions and ideas as well, if your a measly couple of years either way, I'm sorry, you just can't think on the same level as some of us, so try to keep up.

But let me humble myself a little and say that I don't understand what happens between 22 and 27. If 22 is the peak of the brain, you would think that by the definition of the word peak there'd be an incline leading up to 22 and a decline directly after. Which leads me to think that the cognitive decline really starts at 23, not 27. Maybe there's a 5 year plateau, but that would mean 22 isn't the peak, just the beginning of the plateau. But who knows, I didn't even read the article, I just saw the title and subtitle and got excited.

Zion

My friend asked me, "Why do you want to go out of town for your birthday when so many people want to spend the day with you?" Well, if the pictures don't speak for themselves...

Dusty in the middle of The Narrows.

We hiked The Narrows on the actual day. Then, exhausted, went and enjoyed a campfire and birthday beer back at our free campsite. Not sure how else I would have liked to spend the day.

Adam and Dusty overlooking part of the canyon

We spend the weekend exploring the park that none of us had been to before. There were some sketchy hikes, some unreal views, obviously good campfire conversation, and even a last minute overnight stop at Valley of Fire on the way home to stretch the weekend out a bit more.

A Trend: Clearing Storms

It's been a busy week, and an especially long day that was all too frantic. Here's to staying up needlessly late for no other reason than that I really have no good reason to go to sleep early. Follow that? It's the start of a four day weekend and I'll be staying in town for all of it, hoorah!


I was driving home from San Clemente on Sunday afternoon as the tail end of a storm was passing through. I took my camera and, as I swerved down the 91 freeway from one side of my lane across to the other, snapped 35 pictures in about five minutes. Some through my windshield, some over my shoulder, some into the rear-view mirror. It just so happens that this one right here, my favorite, was the very first of the thirty-five.



I snagged this image from the Yosemite webcam earlier this week. Fresh snow on the valley floor in Yosemite. Another clearing storm leaving the darkest blue sky in its wake. I found out I'll be spending five or six days up in Yosemite early this summer after I graduate with the family. I'm hoping some friends find their way up there around the same time. Definitely something to look forward to.

Descartes and his Doubt

We have Rene Descartes, a brilliant French guy who excelled in just a few areas while he was alive: philosophy, math, science, writing; nothing too impressive if you ask me, except maybe the math part. He was called the "Father of Modern Philosophy" and if you've ever heard the phrase "I think, therefore I am," he coined it in writing his Meditations on Modern Philosophy. Here are some excerpts from On the Things in which we may Doubt, the first meditation from that work.

Picture Descartes, isolated in a one room log cabin with fresh snow falling outside, as he describes himself to be 'seated by the fire, clothed in a winter dressing gown, I hold in my hands this piece of paper.'

He begins the meditations,

SEVERAL years have now elapsed since I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and that consequently what I afterward based on such principles was highly doubtful; and from that time I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation...

and he continues...

To-day, then, since I have opportunely freed my mind from all cares [and am happily disturbed by no passions], and since I am in the secure possession of leisure in a peaceable retirement, I will at length apply myself earnestly and freely to the general overthrow of all my former opinions.

It doesn't matter to me whether I agree on what he concludes at the end of his meditations or not, this mindset he begins with is rad and good and beneficial.

January.

At the turn of the New Year, I honestly wasn't too excited when speculating about my first half of 2009. So far, so wrong. Here's a little photo summary of January.

Happy Birthday Becky, in Idyllwild.

NZ Reunion (plus AJ) in Davis

Same crew of four as August, up in Mammoth.

A few highlights that stick out to me...
-Catching the last chair up 22 in Mammoth last weekend. Riding solo through the trees and fresh powder, stopping often to listen to the sound of nothing. There was a rare break in the storm that seemed to last all weekend, and the colors of the setting sun were briefly visible on the clouds and freshly covered mountains across the valley, stellar!
-Hiking up to the giant cement "C" that overlooks my school, spending an hour watching the sun set amidst the storm clouds from the day and the city lights as they began to brighten in the coming night, not to mention some good conversation to back it all up.
Uh, that's all that sticks out above the rest to me right now, onto February!

1 Year

ONE year ago today I arrived in Auckland, New Zealand around five in the morning, pretty wide-eyed and with expectations out of this world. It's close to impossible to compare my experience in NZ with my expectations going in, but if I did I would have to say they were well exceeded. My time living in and exploring that country set 2008 off to be a good year for me...

Five and a half months in breathtaking New Zealand. A little over a week in Australia. Come home to a week with family at Lawrence Welk in Escondido. Houseboating at Lake Mead. Camping at San Onofre. A weekend fishing trip up in Mammoth. A month in Alaska. A weekend spent in Sequoia and Yosemite. Finished off by celebrating the New Year in Mammoth. These travels were nice, but they were only a means to the more important stuff. I had the opportunity to meet different, exciting, unique people and lifestyles and cultures from all over the world, experience the trying fluxuation and growing of friendships and relationships already in place, enjoy countless real conversations about new ideas and thoughts and what it means to think differently than we're accustomed or supposed to, and give up on a few those ideas that didn't seem to be of such importance anymore. All good things.

Last February on the Routeburn Track

A Rough Draft of Sorts

I'm not one to plan too far ahead of myself usually, but I can say I wouldn't mind if the next two and a half years of my life looked something like this.

Summer 2009

The following Fall/Winter/Spring

Summer 2010 through summer 2011

That's so far away it's crazy to think about. We'll see where I end up. At least as of right now I'd like to see this carried out.

Reading, Reading...

I ventured into the new Barnes & Noble the other day hoping to exchange a book I received for Christmas. Interesting bit was, I had not the slightest idea of what book to get in return for it. I started by looking at books by the same author, but there wasn't anything that grabbed my attention that I knew my mom didn't already own. I walked past the cardboard rack holding classics like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and saw they were, as usual, buy two and get the third free, but again I couldn't muster together a worthy trio of them and moved on. Next it was checking out some of the over-sized photography in the coffee table books like Africa from the Air, or Horses, or The Sea, but remembered I'm not in the market for one of those anymore. I peered at the Current Issues rack from a distance, and spent some time looking into what the employee's of the store recommended. Walking away empty handed I went to see if there were any biographies that would be of interest to me, for some reason I've wanted to read Martin Luther's for some time now, but didn't find it and moved on to the Christian/Spirituality section. I looked through the C.S. Lewis collection for a while. I contemplated buying several of his books, then thought an anthology of his would be most practical, but again decided against them all. Finally I came across a table with an intriguing green-covered book titled Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Feeling successful, I proudly carried the book up to the front counter just to let the manager tell me they won't be allowing me to do any exchanges that day.

That said, my extended time in the book store did motivate me to do more reading. I remember a friend at the beginning of last year setting a goal of reading six books by the end of the year, though I'm pretty sure she surpassed it by quite a bit. I started off hot, and slowed down, well almost stopped towards the end of the year, here's a list of the books I read in full:

1. Searching for God Knows What, Donald Miller
2. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
3. The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
4. The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien
5. The Motorcycle Diaries, Che Guevara
6. The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien (I was in NZ, it was only appropriate)
7. The Last American Man, Elizabeth Gilbert

Sad thing is that was completed when I was still in Alaska in September. Some may consider the LOTR trilogy as one book, but if I'm counting, they're three, those things took forever. This quarter I'm taking an interesting Religious Studies and Womens Studies class, and I actually intend to keep up with the reading for them. We'll see.

An Email I Sent...

It was my last few months of living in the city centre of Auckland, NZ. I had read The Irresistible Revolution a half-year before this and was motivated to spend more time around the homeless. So I ventured around town late at night a couple of times, here’s an email I sent to a friend after returning to my apartment the first night.

I walked around town that night after small group. It was super humbling, but not because I met some awesome homeless man and we talked late into the night, or because I was able to offer something to someone in need that we take for granted daily. No, I didn't talk to anyone actually. I timidly asked one man how his night was going, but he wasn't keen on making a new friend, and the only other person I passed who wasn't attempting to sleep was talking to some other guy. Walking around, I realized quickly I had no idea what exactly I was doing, or how to go about doing it, and although I was praying for God to show me things and use me, there was still uneasiness inside me that I couldn't place. So as I was walking back to my flat disappointed because I didn't make any new friends like I had expected, I realized why I felt uneasy and why I had all of the hesitations that I did before.

I was treating this like an event, like a reaching out, like a personal sacrifice for the good of others. Embarrassingly, there was a feeling of self-righteousness knowing that not enough Christians do this, but at the same time there was a feeling of disappointment that hanging with the homeless is slowly becoming more popular, meaning that my actions aren't as radical or admirable as I'd like them to be. Ah the truth inside is so sick eh? Anyway, all of this said, it's about making it a lifestyle. It's not about reaching out to the homeless, it's about being among them and being among them and being among them so that its normal, its routine, so that it goes unnoticed even by ourselves. I feel like I don't deserve for anyone on the streets to give me the light of day, because I had expectations of "amazing" things happening that would ultimately end in feelings of self satisfaction and praise. God showed me how little one night means. He showed me how many nights and days filled with a pure, selfless, and caring heart, (especially after remaining too still for so many years), that it would take before I would deserve respect from people on the streets. Fortunately, I have a feeling they show grace in much greater abundance then any other group of people. Amen to that!

Looking at the Sky Tower and some clouds while sitting

on a hill in the Auckland Domain, my first week in NZ.

An Email I Received...

I received one of those mass emails from a friend the other day, updating a group of us on what’s been going on in her life the last couple of months. In it she shared the highlights of her quarter so far up at UC Davis. Describing one of her highlights to us she wrote…

I joined a club called Acorn Mentoring Project where every week a group of UCD students go to a lower income neighborhood in Sacramento to work with a group of underprivileged kids. It's been a lot of fun (we play games, do crafts, help with homework, talk about important topics - we had a mock election on election day - etc.) but it's also been quite a challenge. Kids range from ages 4 to 16 and some of them have a lot of attitude (I'm talking about 12 years olds cursing at each other!), so sometimes it's hard to know how to effectively communicate with them, but we're there to provide them with a positive environment.

I have another friend who went down to Nicaragua last winter for a couple of weeks or so. She volunteered as a Spanish translator for American doctors who were down there treating those who otherwise aren’t able to receive medical attention. And last I heard, she's trying to find a way to make it back this winter.

Another friend volunteered with an organization called Best Buddies, where she was matched up with someone with intellectual disabilities. They would hang out one on one, grab dinner together, and take part in events like barbecues or bowling. All of this in hopes of being a friend the person could count on and in doing so bettering their lives.

These are just a few examples of people who, as far as I know, don’t really claim to have a relationship with Jesus, and don’t have that to influence the decisions they make, or what they do with their time.

After I read that email I got to thinking a bit and my whole thing is this…

If I did any of these things, I would feel incredibly self-righteous. Here I am believing we’re called to love those who need it the most, and I can’t see myself doing anything without afterwards feeling this false stamp of approval on my heart and my actions. And then there are people who do truly Good things without ever thinking twice about themselves. Hmm… I’m missing something here.

#3.

Yes, this one I like.

Dead Tree. Yosemite Falls.

It was last night that I realized again that I like writing. It usually takes me a long time to find words that I'm satisfied with, but its a good process for me. I usually start writing something before I exactly know what I'll be writing about, or how I feel about it, so it's always a sort of a discover-what-I-actually-think type of thing.

I realized while emailing people from NZ that the best time of day to write is late at night when I'm tired. There's something about the lack of filter in my head then, and how the thoughts and words seem to flow more freely. I told a friend once that I'd like that same lack of filter to be present when the sun was still in the middle of the sky, but I'm not too sure how to make that work just yet.

Yosemite at Night #2.

Here's one more. This was our last stop of the night.

El Capitan from the Cathedral Beach picnic area.

Following this, we flipped the camera around, shot the other way, and proceeded to dance in front of it out there on that beach. What fools! You should've been there.

Yosemite at Night.

Exactly at this time a week ago, I dragged my two friends out of the campsite and around the Valley. I wanted to take pictures of the granite cliffs and waterfalls, all possible thanks to the glow of the three-quarter moon. Here's one...



It was night. It was foggy. It was freezing, almost literally. There was not a soul out there with us. We stood there, in that, unfortunately, now only nearly wild place. Uncomfortable. Cold. Scared. Scared of the dark, of what might come out of the fog, of that unidentified white object floating down the river towards us. In a petty situation like this I was able to stop and realize, this is all worth it. All of these things I would change given the chance and power actually make the situation more beautiful, more memorable. Beauty has depth you see. It's the despair and discomfort of things that bring true beauty to the situation. Real beauty. Beauty that's worth it.

Maybe I use the word beauty too much, I don't really care. The point is, how can I realize this same thing in situations that carry a little more gravity? How can I be grateful for the very things that I would change given the power and opportunity?

Sequoia and Yosemite... Bam!

Made the drive up to Sequoia National Park this weekend with some friends, Dave and Trav. We saw the big General Sherman, and then went and made the climb up Moro Rock.

From the top of Moro Rock, enjoying the dark clouds
and setting sun over the San Joaquin Valley

And then came the night. The third time was a charm for starting the fire, and I was out watching the last couple of logs burn out when the rain came around nine. The intensity of the rain was definitely exaggerated by the echoing effect of our tent, but then came the crazy flashes of lightning and immediate thunder booming off of the mountain walls around us. The rain soon turned to snow, and all of a sudden we're woken up by our tent collapsing in on us because of the weight of the snow on the roof. We had no idea what the heck happened, and it was hilarious. Needless to say, we woke up the next morning to almost a half foot of fresh snow.

A little detour from the hike we took that morning to climb a rock and get a view.

So during a hike to a waterfall that morning, the snow began falling again. Without chains, we thought it'd be best to get down the mountain as soon as possible, so we threw everything in my car and crept down the windy road. After a wet burrito in Visalia, we got the word that weather was better in Yosemite, and and spent the rest of our trip camping in the Valley.

Attempt #1, fail. Attempt #2, fail. Then I refused the help of a nice asian man. Attempt #3, success. I guess I underestimated that log.

Quote of the weekend definitely goes to Travis on our last night in Yosemite: "Hey look, we got a doggie." As Dave and I turn around to see a bear walking up to and through our campsite. Literally between my car and the bear bin. We all jumped up, Travis banged some pots together and we watched it run past our neighbors and into the dark. Then for the next couple of minutes we tracked the bear's progress by the sound of other campers' clanking pots from throughout the campground.

In Flanders Fields

In the Spring of 1915, John McCrae was stationed as a medical officer at the Second Battle of Ypres. Amidst enemy fire, he and his staff cared for hundreds of wounded soldiers each day for seventeen straight days. The day after his closest bud was killed by an exploding shell, McCrae sat on the back of an ambulance, within sight of the new grave, and wrote In Flanders Field.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

As you probably know, trench warfare was the most common way of fighting during World War I. There were times when armies would fight eight and nine month long battles and lose hundreds of thousands of men and women just to have the fronts move merely a couple of miles. Soldiers would be ordered to suicidally climb over the top of the trench just to get mowed down by the enemy's machine guns. The area between the opposing trenches was called no man's land, and was often filled with the dead and decaying.

It was in this place where the beautiful poppies would bloom, and paint the battlefields beautiful shades of red-orange. It would be these poppies, protruding from the same ground that contained so many of their fellow soldiers, that would serve as the only glimmer of beauty and life to those still left to fight. I like to think about how trying and dark fighting in this war must have been, and what a contrast those poppies must have seemed, knowing that there was at least some bit of beauty stemming from and existing amongst the chaos.

Mt. Baldy

So my cousin Dusty and I decided to climb Mt. Baldy on Tuesday.

The sun finally came up after we had been on the trail for a couple of hours. We pretty much had the mountain to ourselves the entire day.

What a stud. We got distracted and climbed a pile of rocks on the way up.

The view from the top. 10,064 ft. The highest point in L.A.

Do you want to see where my house is?

The Far Side of the Mountain

You see. I'm standing at the bottom of this mountain. I have to climb it. There's no summit though, not from what I can see. It's endless. The clouds are thick up there, and I don't know how far up it goes, and what it looks like towards the top. I don't even see a trail, where to put my first steps. I've tried walking in a couple of different directions, and always end up right back at the bottom of the mountain. Some days it'll feel like I'm making progress, but soon I find myself going in circles, or hitting a big massive slap-in-the-face kind of dead end, and once again am returned to the bottom of the mountain. What I would really like to do is stay here. Find myself an open meadow with a fresh creek running through and build myself a nice little cabin, where I can hold on to familiarity and the comfort of what I already know. Of what I can see in front of me, of a sure thing, even if it means missing out on the views and experiences and triumphs that come with making it to the top and on to the other side. I know I can't linger though. The option isn't even there. I've climbed similar mountains before, though none this big, none this treacherous or demanding of will, none with the promise of such a different landscape on the other side, more beautiful and free than anything I've ever experienced. At least that's what I believe, and I have to, because it's that belief and that hope that keeps me searching, that doesn't allow me to sit and be stagnant on this side. I'll make it to the top, first because of that promise for the future, but also because I have to, no matter how much I'd like to believe otherwise, there's nothing left for me here on this side. Nothing. If I could only fully believe that, I'd be on my way so much quicker.

Mt. Aspiring, my favorite mountain in New Zealand

Flightseeing!

Let me now share with you the best perk of working in Alaska: getting to do really rad things for free.


My favorite being Flightseeing. Like I said before, I had the opportunity to jump on a plane and fly over Denali National Park, and then fly between and around Mt. McKinley. I was literally looking down on the 20,300 foot summit, the tallest in North America.



The first time I saw Mt. McKinley was from 110 miles away on the Stampede Trail, and it still looked massive from there. I was able to get within 2,500 hundred feet of the mountain, remarkable! A third of the people who visit Alaska actually get to see the mountain because of the crazy weather and clouds that usually surround it. It's so big it creates it's own weather system I hear. Obviously I was pretty dang fortunate to have good weather while up in that plane. Can't be grateful enough for this opportunity, still wowwed by it.

Welcome to Alaska!

Here's to late nights, early mornings, and a tired first day of school.

I returned home from Alaska later than originally planned Saturday night. It is now early Friday morning. I didn't have much access to the internet while up there, so instead of posting cool things while they happened, I'll have to do it all in retrospect. I also don't want to try to cram my time spent up there into one post, so this may turn into a bit of a miniseries, if that's okay.

The morning was stellar enough even before the moose joined me at the lake.

I had expectations for Alaska that I didn't expect to be met, if that makes sense. Expectations usually ruin things. In this case, Alaska was actually so wide open, so huge, so overly beautiful and refreshing and welcoming that it surprised me. I lived in the small town of Healy, about ten minutes down the highway from the entrance to Denali National Park, and all of the resorts and tourists that come with it. For 'work', I gave ATV tours on the nearby abandoned coal mining roads and on the Stampede Trail. I also did a couple of side jobs, like paint the boss's bathroom, help construct a massive tent, and dig up a collapsed sewage tank. :)

In Alaska, I didn't have a close encounter with a Grizzly like I had hesitantly hoped for going in, or a Moose or Lynx or Wolf or even Dall Sheep for that matter. I didn't spend a freezing night alone out by the bus, or spend multiple days tramping around the interior of Denali. I didn't do an incredibly challenging trek to the top of any great mountain either. I did manage to lose things though: Lens cap and polarizer, beanie (though only for a time), jacket, gloves. And I also met people. Hundreds of twenty-something guys and girls from all over flock to Denali for four months out of the year to work and have a good time. I met bartenders, waitresses, coal miners, raft guides, housekeepers, horse guides, coffee shoppers, hotel managers, cooks, actresses, etc., from all different parts of the world. Who knew the people would be my favorite part of the trip.

Maybe next year I'll fix this boat, for now, I'll photograph it.

Besides just meeting people, I had the opportunity to do some pretty amazing things that I'm beyond grateful for: I took an 11 hour bus ride eighty-six miles into the heart of Denali National Park, the third largest national park in the country, went white water rafting down the freezing glacial melt off known as the Nenana River, hopped on a little ten-passenger plane as it toured the park and flew over, in between, and around the 20,300 summit of Mt. McKinley, and finally, thanks to the guys I worked with, was serenaded with happy birthday by an auditorium full of sixty and seventy year old tourists who were just trying to enjoy their cheesy musical and all you can eat salmon and ribs.