Outdoorism

Until I learned what I truly value, my life was essentially dedicated to the values of others. It was in the outdoors that I discovered the values I feel certain are my own.

We talk about our values all the time, treating them as a given. That’s appropriate, because most of the time I think they are given to us like a pair of Emperor’s Trousers. The real reason that I never pointed out the Emperor’s New Clothes was that I had them on myself, and wasn’t about to point out the fact that I was naked.

Of course I resented being dressed up in this bogus clothing. My first step toward discovery of my own clothes was to rebelliously fling off the clothing that had been foisted on me. In public, for real. Once I was discovered nude outside a formal fraternity dance at the liberal arts college I attended. Festivities before the dance had involved a heated plexiglass dunk tank, the kind where you throw a ball at the target to plunge the clown sitting over the water. It was left outside the hall, and when the gowned and tuxedoed couples emerged after the dance they discovered me having a nice soak, my clothes in a pile on the sidewalk. The next day a beefy frat boy approached me in the dining hall, taking off his glasses. I prepared to have my lights knocked out, but the gentleman instead made a public statement declaring me a “moral deviant”. That’s when I knew I had successfully shed the values that weren’t mine to begin with, but I still hadn’t found any clothes of my own to wear. And the next morning, I got dressed in the same old hand-me-downs again before going out.

The truth is, discovering your own values is like unlocking the Secret of Happiness, deciphering the Meaning of Life, or Finding Yourself. Anyone who claims to have the answer ready for you is probably selling some brand of royal fashions. In my case, no clothes fit me until I went on a journey to find them. A few journeys, actually, all outdoors.

So even though I can’t tell you where you’ll find your perfect pajamas, I did get some insights into the reasons why the outdoors worked for me. I suspect these things may apply to the journeys of others as well.

The primary benefit of an extended outdoor journey is that it changes one’s basis of survival. The set of circumstances that provided me with food, shelter, and security changed drastically when I went backpacking or rock climbing. I think this change of perspective was important in that it allowed me to examine my prior circumstances from afar, without having my immediate survival at stake. This provided a clarity of vision that I haven’t found in other endeavors. It also made me cognizant of the fact that there are ways to survive other than those I know. This is incredibly encouraging.

Going a little deeper, I think immersion in the outdoors is beneficial because ultimately, our survival always depends on the natural systems we experience there. My attempts at school and work seemed almost designed to make me forget that the building blocks of my body and everything around it were at some point grown or dug from the earth. Somehow we must relate to the land to survive, but my cultural situation had taught me to relate to organizations, corporations, and various other constructions instead. It didn’t sink in that these entities must be conducting my relationship with the land for me until they were removed from the picture. Sleeping and walking on the earth for a long period of time helped to restore my sense of connection with it, and this in turn helped me to examine those organizations, corporations, and constructions more objectively. When I found things of value from this perspective, those values stuck with me instead of shifting and fluctuating like the Emperor’s clothes.

These are ways the outdoors helped me to find my values. They are part of the reason that one of those values is the outdoors, but that isn’t really my intended point. I think the outdoors can help people to discover their values, even if the outdoors itself doesn’t end up ranking high on the list. It helped me see the relationships and ideas that are most valuable to me in my indoor life, and I believe it can do the same for others. Just go on your own outdoor search for the Holy Grail. You may find you already have it, but it takes a step outdoors to see it in the light.

If I had to choose someone to take care of the lands I love to explore, I’d choose someone like Mike Dechter. He does a number of jobs for the Santa Fe National Forest, but found time to respond to an inquiry I made and give me an interview. Mike expresses how the outdoors inspires him in his work, how others can get started along a similar path, and how we as users of national forests can get more out them.

It’s easy to visit the outdoors, see all the grand sights that await you there, and not realize that the places we visit are changing. Mountains especially seem stoic, immovable, and almost changeless. We take our pictures and make our memories in an instant, and take home an impression of a place during only that instant. I love going outdoors this time of year, to mountains and deserts especially, because the wildflowers growing there are so effective at shattering this illusion. They express their impermanence in their fragility, throwing all their energy into a paper-thin bloom that couldn’t possibly survive a cold night. Try to count the different kinds, and there always seems to be another variety not yet seen. Pass a dull shrub in the morning, and on the return trip in the afternoon it has exploded with blossoms, while its neighbors have closed up. All of this activity happens on a time scale we can witness, which makes it a sort of language the outdoors can use to speak to us. I believe the flowers express in their diverse dance the stories of other changes happening in the places we visit that are less perceptible to us. Changes that take place over days, weeks, years, and millenia are all underway during our visit, and all reflect the patterns shown to us by the flowers in some way. There’s always something new to learn from them, so I’m always inspired to get outdoors this time of year to see the wildflowers, and listen to them as well!

It’s easy to underestimate Tom Hickey if you don’t get into a conversation with him. A retired tax accountant who lives in Santa Fe, I met him atop Desolation Peak above the Santa Fe Ski Basin on an afternoon hike. His stiff-kneed walk gave me the impression of an overambitious senior citizen. He was also on his way to Lake Peak, so I followed him towards the ridge, and was surprised when he clambered right along the spine of the rock catwalk rather than the easier, lower route. We chatted enough for me to realize he was intending to do a longer, better hike than I was. To my very good fortune he invited me to come along, and let me interview him. As you’ll hear, there’s far more to Tom Hickey than meets the eye.