I’ve been out in Montana for what seems like weeks now, even though it’s only been – wait, it has been weeks.
What an incredible time though. I went to college in Montana (or should I say I was enrolled in college, I rarely went – I was always busy doing other things, and no, partying was not on the list) so I’ve grown to really love this place, at least in the summers.
I have gotten to see a lot of the Primal Quest course, and it really is spectacular. It’s amazing how just a couple weeks of sunshine can change everything too – when I arrived they’d had 18 inches of snow the previous day, and all the peaks were white.
Now, the mountains are mostly bare, the rivers are finally coming down from flood stage, and it’s been in the 80’s every day. In a way, it’s kind of an illustration of the timeline of life…
I was in Montana exactly a year ago, spending time with friends and riverboarding. A year seems like a long time, and yet, it has gone by in the blink of an eye.
Along with that though has been motion – constant, determined, focused forward motion. Like a current in a powerful river, there’s not much that can stop that. It’s only a matter of time…
I paddled some 80 miles on the Yellowstone river not long ago, before the race started. It took 8 hours. Along the way it was interesting to see the many islands and various channels that the river took on its downstream journey.
There’s a lot more water in it now, so much so that we had to ax the section from the race for safety concerns. When there are live trees with full-on root balls and branches still attached flowing downstream at 12mph, probably not a good place to stick tandem kayaks.
That’s the metaphor though – the river doesn’t care what it destroys. It’s just going. Going where gravity and the riverbed and the forces of nature take it, which is eventually to the sea. That’s the cycle of life.
Occasionally I have found myself thinking about the path I’m on and the similarities to that river. I’m not afraid to be selfish, in the proper sense of the word – to do what is best for myself and my purpose on earth. To pursue what I believe to be best for me, for my business, and to not worry myself with uprooting (or upsetting) others along the way.
Of course, it’s all a game, in some respects, so I understand that pure destruction is not productive either (i.e. flooding entire cities, ala Iowa). In the long run that’s not beneficial. But as the flow gets stronger and the force more powerful, I really don’t care if I uproot a few trees along the way.
But it’s a fine line, and one that I admit I’m still learning. Tact, and manipulation, and clever dealings, all a little trickier than they can be when talking about them. The application is the challenge.
And yet, it’s not – it’s undoing the years of brainwashing and b.s. altruistic thinking that is the real challenge.