Journalism

9/24/23

Wisdom, MT

I might be shooting myself in the foot. Big time. With this blog, that is. What might be better for me right now is to disappear, or at least minimize contact with the outside world. I’m thinking too much about:

1. Doing something interesting enough every day to make for a good blog post

2. Who’s reading my blog and who actually cares

Both of which, thought about for too long, will make me think that I’m not doing anything interesting, and that no one really cares. But I know deep down that neither of those things are true. So why should I continuing doing things that make me think that are true.

To have no passions, and no obligations, and no one to visit, that would be true freedom I suppose. But that also sounds awful. It seems the trade-off of having purpose to your life is that you are bound to those purposes, for better or worse. To have passion means having the obligation to fulfill those passions. At least that’s how I feel in this moment. With that passion being mountain climbing.

I’m able to, using logical thought processes, mentally work out a solution to any dilemma I find myself in. But often times a logical solution does not help me feel any better, deep down.

Today I stopped in a small town on a Sunday morning in order to escape the cold, get some wifi for my blog, and use a bathroom. But when I got there I thought it was such an interesting little town that I imagined how fun it would be to be a journalist, and uncover some story. I made the mistake of telling the barista that I was a journalist, without really thinking through what that means. The result was her intense hesitancy to answer any of my, otherwise meaningless questions.

“What was your name?”

“Carol, but it’s not gonna work. I’m not answering any of your questions.”

So I guess the lesson there is to never claim to be a journalist upon meeting a stranger. In a very small town. At about 9am on a Sunday morning.

Much of today was spent on the road, heading towards Jackson, WY. We stopped in Spencer, Dubois, Idaho Falls, and slowed down a little bit through Victor. Aside from Idaho Falls, I’m not sure which states any of those towns were in. The landscape is all very similar, and the state borders creep up on you.

Somewhere close to Victor, I passed a section of national forest containing several Aspen groves. My first thought was Birch, as they are similar to someone like me who knows next to nothing about trees, but I saw a sign that said Aspen, so I figure that was what they were.

The evening light was coming through the pale green leaves, and the white trunks beckoned me to come wander among them. And for a brief moment as we passed by, I figured everything would be just fine.