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Steve Sanduski's avatar

Another wonderful, insightful read, Nikki. These two paragraphs hit particularly "hard" for me.

"The constructs of our society don’t have much space for those of us with what I would call a ‘wilderness within’ - wild energy you could say. Who relates? I’d argue, it’s inside all of us. Some of us are just better at taming it.

"Which we all have to do - to an extent; confine our inherent nature to be wild. I guess it’s a choice. But the alternative option has pretty tough social repercussions. And, in compressing our spirit, we feel like anyone would feel like when they are restrained and restricted - a dullness, a sense of disconnection, unmotivated - just a bit … beige."

It's that Horizon--Hearth polarity I'm struggling with!

The post also reminded me of a poem about mountain climbing by Rene Daumal.

One cannot stay on the summit forever -

One has to come down again.

So why bother in the first place? Just this.

What is above knows what is below -

But what is below does not know what is above

One climb, one sees-

One descends and sees no longer

But one has seen!

There is an art of conducting one's self in

The lower regions by the memory of

What one saw higher up.

When one can no longer see,

One does at least still know.

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You could put sailing in there for climbing and I think it shows the universal value of not taming our wild side to the extent that life becomes...beige. While most of us can't (or choose not to) live life 100% wild, we can still benefit from those wild moments few get to experience even when we're back from the adventure.

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Jim Schulz's avatar

Thanks for this Nikki, it’s a great reminder that knowing yourself isn’t selfish, it’s the key to everything else. My wife just starting watching Oliver’s adventure and while I wouldn’t want to be on his content creation treadmill I’m glad he’s doing it.

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