Reflections from the Desert - Memoirs from Amargosa
This was written last night, when I was really bored at work, but somehow, I felt so restless... like it was hard to sit still.
I feel almost changed from my recent experience... but in a good way... like a part of me has been awakened. So, I will start to share a little bit of what I experienced, starting now, in this blog. It won't be much tonight, as my time is limited. But I can add to it later. So here goes.
I just got back from the desert. Back to reality, back from an experience which I am only now coming to realize was more 'perspective-changing' than I could have imagined. I don't know how far-reaching the impression of this experience is yet. Is my enthusiasm just me still experiencing inertia in the wake of the huge ripples of such an experience? Or is it something more lasting? Have I realized more? I sense a difference. I feel enlightened, somehow (which seems strange if you're just somebody reading this out of the blue). If I've "seen the light", then it came unexpectedly... materializing subtly from the darkness at Amargosa, like the very ghosts which inhabit that place. I've learned, it's possible, 'light bulb' moments very frequently happen in the dark. Like cogs of a wheel suddenly lining up, it suddenly all makes sense. When you'd watch ghost hunting programs, what you might have once considered rhetoric, suddenly becomes affirmation... corroboration. Belief replaces skepticism, and there's that moment of a deeper respect you feel for things... not only for life... but for death..
It started as a sunny, Friday afternoon. The midday sun seemed impossibly bright. The long highway stretched on for seemingly impossible distances. I was far from home... in unfamiliar territory... at the mercy of surroundings of whose potential dangers I could not contemplate with any degree of certainty. In the back of my mind, my inner voice nags me, reminding me that there is only so much gas in this gas tank... Each turn out here counts, because each wrong turn could cost me. When there are miles of road with sometimes 30 miles in between signs/turnoffs, no cell service, and temperatures soaring well above 90, good judgement is crucial. This is the kind of environment where you're forced to get back to a more primitive mode of survival which has largely been forgotten in the digital, fast-paced world we live in nowadays. We've been so sanitized from needing to rely on ourselves, that suddenly, when you get into an environment of potential destitution, you immediately sense the moment you "click" over... and you're operating on instincts. Your eyes open just a little wider. Your'e more cognizant of physical sensations. You start paying attention to little details you'd been taking for granted... for instance what the air smells like. You realize you feel alive. And with the removed element of outside contact, (ie: The realization you've lost all cell signals) the added adrenaline, actually, in some weird way, adds to the excitement. For many, its exhilerating effects are immediate. But perhaps the happiest consequence is that it forces us to just be human beings again. It forces us to set aside our differences, drop all our creature comforts & electronic socialization. We start to finally see those around us. It seems, without all that electronic distraction, we start to hear each other a little bit better...
Perhaps then, it is from within this 'stripped-down' version of ourselves, that we are open to more... and more accepting to the possibility of things we wouldnt normally consider, but which society has urged us to dismiss. I suspect we all know in the far recesses of our minds... there's more... so much more...
_________________________________________________
And more to come. That is all the writing I have for now.
Thank you for reading. :-)
I feel almost changed from my recent experience... but in a good way... like a part of me has been awakened. So, I will start to share a little bit of what I experienced, starting now, in this blog. It won't be much tonight, as my time is limited. But I can add to it later. So here goes.
I just got back from the desert. Back to reality, back from an experience which I am only now coming to realize was more 'perspective-changing' than I could have imagined. I don't know how far-reaching the impression of this experience is yet. Is my enthusiasm just me still experiencing inertia in the wake of the huge ripples of such an experience? Or is it something more lasting? Have I realized more? I sense a difference. I feel enlightened, somehow (which seems strange if you're just somebody reading this out of the blue). If I've "seen the light", then it came unexpectedly... materializing subtly from the darkness at Amargosa, like the very ghosts which inhabit that place. I've learned, it's possible, 'light bulb' moments very frequently happen in the dark. Like cogs of a wheel suddenly lining up, it suddenly all makes sense. When you'd watch ghost hunting programs, what you might have once considered rhetoric, suddenly becomes affirmation... corroboration. Belief replaces skepticism, and there's that moment of a deeper respect you feel for things... not only for life... but for death..
It started as a sunny, Friday afternoon. The midday sun seemed impossibly bright. The long highway stretched on for seemingly impossible distances. I was far from home... in unfamiliar territory... at the mercy of surroundings of whose potential dangers I could not contemplate with any degree of certainty. In the back of my mind, my inner voice nags me, reminding me that there is only so much gas in this gas tank... Each turn out here counts, because each wrong turn could cost me. When there are miles of road with sometimes 30 miles in between signs/turnoffs, no cell service, and temperatures soaring well above 90, good judgement is crucial. This is the kind of environment where you're forced to get back to a more primitive mode of survival which has largely been forgotten in the digital, fast-paced world we live in nowadays. We've been so sanitized from needing to rely on ourselves, that suddenly, when you get into an environment of potential destitution, you immediately sense the moment you "click" over... and you're operating on instincts. Your eyes open just a little wider. Your'e more cognizant of physical sensations. You start paying attention to little details you'd been taking for granted... for instance what the air smells like. You realize you feel alive. And with the removed element of outside contact, (ie: The realization you've lost all cell signals) the added adrenaline, actually, in some weird way, adds to the excitement. For many, its exhilerating effects are immediate. But perhaps the happiest consequence is that it forces us to just be human beings again. It forces us to set aside our differences, drop all our creature comforts & electronic socialization. We start to finally see those around us. It seems, without all that electronic distraction, we start to hear each other a little bit better...
Perhaps then, it is from within this 'stripped-down' version of ourselves, that we are open to more... and more accepting to the possibility of things we wouldnt normally consider, but which society has urged us to dismiss. I suspect we all know in the far recesses of our minds... there's more... so much more...
_________________________________________________
And more to come. That is all the writing I have for now.
Thank you for reading. :-)
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