The Peace of Wild Things

Say what you want about Chat GPT, but it is NOT A MAMMAL.

Chat GPT is not my friend. ALL MY FRIENDS ARE MAMMALS.

This is a weird thing about being online. We can know a lot about someone--this person is a Christian, and a father of three children, and married to that person, and likes Cheerios--but we only know what they told us, which is--of course--almost nothing.

And yet, human pattern-makers that we are, we inevitably fill in the gaps in information with assumptions that are based on whether we kinda assume the best of someone or kinda assume the worst of them. Like, I do not imagine that Elon Musk came home from his hard work making everyone's life worse yesterday and held a sick friend's hand as that friend died--but of course that's possible! I don't know!

In the wilderness there are no schedules, no messages, no tasks, no infrastructure. A weight removed.

Disconnect.

Time slows; time now to think! Really think. Space to be together. To find out who your friends are not what they like; not what they do. Attention undivided. We watch.

Observe.

Whistle at the birds. They whistle back. “Welcome home!” they say. “We kept it while you were away.”

A human: build–rebuild. A false inspiration. An imperfect perfection. We have our model! A living model. Reconnect.

I often think about the line: “I plan to be forgotten when I’m gone” in the song, The Wild Hunt, by the The Tallest Man On Earth. It appeals to the back-country adventurer in me: explore, but leave no trace. In this sense, I do plan to be forgotten when I’m gone. It’s a pragmatic ideal. It’s not emotional. I want others to do the same so that the wilderness can be enjoyed indefinitely.

While I strongly believe in the idea of “leave no trace” camping, I don’t believe in “leave no trace” living. I think Nimoy gives a bit of inspiration. The video above was posted only 14 months before Nimoy passed away, and here’s what he had to say about what playing one of the most famous characters of all time meant to him (in video at 20:49):

I had choices for the first time in many years. And still, to this day, I consider it a great opportunity and a blessing to live a creative life. To live a life that has to do with finding ideas, and developing them, and expressing ideas, and hopefully making a contribution to the human condition. And that may sound pompous, but it’s real for me, very real for me. When I chose to be an actor it was not because I wanted to be famous, but because I wanted to make a contribution. I thought I had something to offer, and something that might be useful and I wanted to get it out there. And I came across eventually, a piece of writing that expresses the artistic condition, I think brilliantly. It is Edwin Booth, the actor, heard the solemn whisper of the God of all arts, who said, “I shall give you hunger, and pain, and sleepless nights. Also beauty and satisfaction, known to few, and glimpses of the heavenly life. None of these shall you have continually, and of the coming and going, you shall not be foretold.” And that for me sums up the life of a creative person, what a creative life is. It’s painful, it’s exhilarating, it’s difficult. [You] never know what is coming next, so you ask me what’s in the future? All I can do is hope that some more great opportunities come along to express myself.

I have brilliant classmates/friends