Coming Down From the Mountain

Satisfied with his progress he un-shouldered the pack, which weighed heavily upon bent shoulders. Winded, from the past two miles and three thousand feet, he found a lichen-spotted rock in the shade of a giant pine on which to sit. One hundred-eighty degrees of tree carpeted mountains and powder sky was his view. The valley below him, blanketed in a filthy purple-brown shroud of smog, looked faraway and insignificant. Did he really live in that? No matter. Now was time to revel in existing. Simply being alive and breathing was enough for him. Momentarily he thought of the unfortunate people eight thousand feet below him who would never know his feelings of pleasantness, hope, inspiration, and oneness welling up inside of him; it was both freedom and peace at the same time to. These thoughts slipped swiftly from his mind as he felt and heard the breeze lazily rushing around him. Audibly the wind came in waves, bouncing from mountainside to mountainside, crescendoing as it neared him, chilling his perspiring forehead. On the rest of his body the Wind blew warm and comforting air.

Although he had not reached his goal, Marion Peak, his heart told him he had trekked far enough; goals and the achievement of did not fit comfortably, or perhaps not at all, in his current setting; goals were a thing for the bottom of the mountain, along with multi-tasking, schedules and appointments. Guilt flitted the edge of his consciousness and it too fled his mind quickly like the pity he had encountered for those below him. A tremor of laughter moved his body.

Another wind wave crushed its freshness upon him. His mind took a bath in it. Clarity cleansed clouded thoughts. An Idea had delivered him to this place, this rock. Or, rather an Ideal was his guide. Both. The reasons for coming up here was as important to him right then as all the things he had left temporarily behind. He was here. He could focus his attention on the Idea and the Ideal, without having to think about anything else. There are no specific physical reasons, like divorce, illness, or something of that nature. No, for him stress from Day to Day living causes him to find an escape. It is the profane mundanity-the boredom brought about by knowing what comes next.

The Idea is that as a man, he is piling layer upon layer of worthless thoughts, feelings, emotions and actions upon his rapidly complicating life. Waking up, shaving, going to work, living the same day, the same way, the same lie. The Idea of living his life, much like the masses below, in a manner less fitting to a human and more fitting to a pet. The Idea is to get away from those mind and life assassinating behaviors that fornicate shamelessly with materialism, and inanity. Losing himself-which he would do even if it took his agonizing death in God’s land-is what he wants. From that had to come peace, which would hopefully signify the prelude to self-discovery he was questing after.

The Ideal is to discover a path befitting a human. Not the craziness of the nine to five fishbowl in which he currently swims. The Ideal is to change his life.

Impulse, coursing through his veins, moves him to his pack, where he snatches pen and paper from his bag. Deftly his fingers grip the pen and scratch quickly across the unblemished paper.

What Are You About?

Surprised by what he reads to himself, pen falling from slack fingers, he is struck by realization, his mind flowering with sudden thoughts. What was HE about? This-thing-that he had written is not directed toward people he witnessed on a daily basis hungrily grasping for the higher rungs of stature. It was about him. His subconscious was asking the mortal consciousness of him; what is the answer for self?

Something he had read, from the past days of college, comes forward. It is Friedrich Nietzsche:

Where, in his life, are his mountaintops and trees?

Quickly assessing his innermost character, he inventoried what he values currently: money, status, women, and possessions. There it is-Truth-glaring at him, like a hideous monster rearing a head so ugly, he wants to deny it even exists or that he has found it to be what it is.

He takes everything from life and nature with no reciprocation on his behalf of any kind. He has nothing but unhappiness.

Something close to nausea, nausea of the mind overtakes him. Amongst the beauty surrounding him, he is the blemish. The ugliness is like a cancerous chancre upon the woods. That is he. What misery.

He stands up. The peace of the forest is broken. All that mattered to him equaled one thing: an empty existence. His breathing becomes rapid. Deep steady breaths turn into short gasps for air. He can feel hot blood flush his face. The calming sounds of wind, birds and the rustling of branches were overcome by the pounding pulse in his ears. Looking around he barely notices the gray-furred squirrel trying to break an acorn on the dead and rotting log less than twenty feet away. Or the thick forest growth, random and chaotic. It mirrored his thoughts.

His mouth opens, closes, as if he was about to say something. No words come out. His jumbled and confused mental activity is racing so fast, going in so many different directions, that he cannot pick or distinguish one rational concept from another. The sting of his own sweat makes him blink his eyes so fast that his vision takes on a strobe effect.

Taking several steps up the trail, chest heaving up and down.

He turns, moving back down several feet.

His fingers twitch and clench into fists.

He repeats this movement several times, stalking.

Pieces of words form in his mouth, coming out as noise.

Guttural.

Primitive.

Abruptly he stops.

Mouth open wide, he roars. Expelling everything. His anger. His misery. His hatred for himself at that moment all came out in one primal roar like a lion caught inside a hunter’s cage, with no recourse about being caged other than to vocalize the madness.

His realization of captivity.

That scream, his scream, goes on,and when he runs out of the first breath he screams some more.

He raises his arms and shakes them with his fists.

Still he screams.

Thick arms reach for one of many heavy rocks lying at his feet. With little effort he plucks a head sized stone from the ground and, bringing it over and then behind his head, he hurls it far from the trail. Too busy to watch it descend down the mountain, he quickly picks up another, this one bigger than the first, giving it the same fate as his brother. This time he pauses to watch it first bounce off the fallen trunk of a massive pine then clang with a dull crack, bouncing, upon boulders below.

Still he screams.

His veins are thick with blood in his neck. If he had a mirror he would see a shade of purple he had never seen before. His eyes, too, feel the pressure. His voice no longer carries the scream like it had in those first fifty seconds as it loses vocal power. The pumping rush of his heartbeat can be heard a thousand times louder than previously, so that he feels it as well.

He screams himself empty. Empty from the instances in his life where he felt alone, without love. From the many times he had exploited a persons weakness for his gain. From the resentment he had for his family; for God, who let a world such as his exist. He was empty from himself.

The part of him that was rational finally started to break the barrier of madness his psyche had constructed. Here he was, half-mad at the world, god, people, but mostly himself, behaving as an animal. He had lost control-no-he had rejected control.

It felt beautiful, silly even. He begins to laugh; a small laugh at first. A smile reforms from the grim look on his face. The smile got bigger. And bigger. His laugh grew with that smile.

His laughter, like the sound of the bouncing rocks, echoes in his head and throughout the valley of the mountains. Much like the scream signified everything disgusting and all of the parts of his life he was unhappy with, the laughter represented everything good-it wasn’t all bad-about him and his life.

Oh, surely he was going mad. He was feeling wrapped up in nakedness, if that was possible. His chest was still heaving, but his breathing was slowing. All the blood in his face was leaving to take up residence in the appropriate areas of his body. His vision cleared and the sounds of birds, trees and wind came back to him. His fingers went slack. Laughter subsided and he was sober again. Sane.

He had been purged.

When thinking about what he did and did not like, it was hard to articulate and translate into words. Previously those likes and dislikes were nagging tidbits of unsettling feelings. Those feelings came to him again, and this time he was able to translate into cognitive reasoning, although foreign to his mind. The clarity from earlier, suppressed by the echoes in his screaming head, had returned.

I do not help anyone but myself-Truth. I will help people-Truth.

I have very little love in my life-Truth. To get love I must commit the act of love-Truth.

This time the truths hurt him little. He accepted them as he would himself. His hands and face felt lighter, no longer swollen from blood. Still standing he looked to the sky for reassurance. His answers would come from inwards from now on. Instead of thinking about getting the newest and best he would think of living and acting. If he devoted time to the introspection of living, from everything inward to out, his restlessness would subside.

He takes a deep breath.

This was some heavy stuff. He gave a half-shake of his head to clear it. The hike, the screaming, the rock hurling, the panic and manic intensity of the moment had taken a toll physically and mentally. He fell purposely to the ground. His arms propped his torso up. Feet and legs sprawled in front of him.

He takes another deep breath.

His eyes close.

Taking his arms from underneath, he let the rest of his body fall to the ground. Was his life different from others? The answer, before his mind completed the question, was no. He was no different. Sure, he had different experiences and such but the feelings from those individual situations were the same. Questions and answers like these came and went like the squirrels he saw around him gathering nuts for the winter.

What was the main cause of his misery?

That was the question that came to him and he held to. For it was the important query he was seeking the answer to. He sat up.

His life and the way he lived it was like a housing tract. Planned to the most miniscule detail. The order of progression that he was following allowed no room for change. Job, marriage, kids retirement, specifically in that order. The same order that everyone else seemed to plan their lives for. Every month, week, day, minute, hour and second would be accounted for over the next forty years.

Oh God.

This was done through his work schedule, mortgage, car payment and IRA account. He would fill up the middle with products. Even his vacations, the time he was supposed to be free, were packaged. Everything was wrapped up in an easy set of terms with monthly payments.

For the past ten years he had accepted this without thought.

It had gone on since birth, this planning, this pre-determined way of living. After Elementary was Jr. High. After Jr. High it was High School. High School led to University. University birthed his profession. His career would simmer and burn into the ashes of retirement, where, by all accounts, he would live his Golden Years in freedom.

He wanted his Golden Years now.

Sitting there, with the afternoon sun heating the air, he ran his fingers through damp hair. Hmmm. Could he attain freedom forty years prematurely? How would he go about it? Throwing off the weight of responsibility, while it sounded defiant and wonderful, would not be practical. Would planning this course of action lock him into another rigid way of living? Would change only be a substitute for his restlessness?

Dwelling on this would lead his already fuzzy mind in circles. The brilliance of the cloudless sky drew his gaze upward. Red-Tailed Hawks were circling around his head. There were six-no, eight of them.

Soundless they circled. Several came lower, so low; he could hear the currents zipping over wing-feathers. They are hunting. Not far away he can hear the cries of what could only be hungry little ones.

Motivation.

Motivations cause action. Motivations are things like hunger, feeling happy, being cold, fear; these are the things that cause action. Such as those are the motivations of animals. Humans, in their effort to be distinguished from animals, have exceeded their base motivations-misplaced them. His choice in profession was motivated by money, by greed. Enjoyment with a modicum of necessity for food and shelter would be the ideal motivation for a new job.

For a life.

Yes, he would find a job that he enjoyed. Not a job that demanded everything of him but one that paid him in satisfaction for the time he would give it.

Yes. Yes. Yes!

This, he thought as he put pen and paper back into the pack, would be how he would begin his life again.

This is how he will refill it. By giving as much as he took. He will want less for himself and give more of himself. He will devaluate products, the tangible, and valuate life, the intangible.

Shouldering his pack and standing up, he looks at the trail before him. To his left he can see the tree line topping the mountain peak.

Another wave breaks against his face.

He smiles, with a tuneless whistle coming from his lips, and starts down the mountain trail. He has a long way to go.