Category: Chapters

It was the last day of our hike through the High Uintas in northeastern Utah. We had weathered the lightning storm that echoed through the valley like the cries of some great god, lived through hiking in the hail that pelted us every step for miles on end, and could now tell stories of days of living perpetually in the rain. The morning was clear and bright, and we had risen early and climbed above the tree line before we ate breakfast. Cheerios on the tundra of the high ridge of Bald Mountain, the thought still brings a smile to my face this day.

The High Uintas, if my memory serves me, have the largest alpine environment in the contiguous United States. Although the highest point, Kings Peak, is around 13,500 feet, the amount of elevated terrain above tree line is impressive, even to someone who has lived in the tundras of northwestern Alaska. We had left the alpine ridge and the five of us were hiking through the trees on the other side, leading down to the valley where we had parked. Having just found a creek and filled our water bottles, we were all set for a leisurely 8 mile hike back out of the wilderness. We were ready for many things, but not for them.

At first no one was quite sure what they heard. I, myself, thought it had sounded like a far away group of ATV’s sitting on idle while their occupants were looking at a map. Justin said it reminded him of chainsaws in the distance. We knew that there might be rangers in the area, servicing trails, but unfortunately the reality was that the sound was far from human.

The noise grew louder, until it was a subtle rolling roar sounding from everywhere but directly behind us. Each step grew a little more wary, all of our eyes peeled on the forest before us, looking for the unseen horror that waited.

We all heard the cry at once, the distinguishing anguish that pierced through the roar and gave us a chilling shock as it told us, without doubt, what evil we would find ourselves faced with.

“Baaah-aaah-aaah! Baah-aaaah!”

It seemed they appeared everywhere at once. When first the woods had been empty but for us, the rim of our visibility seemed to fill instantly with thousands of foul, disgusting, bloated, evil sheep.

We stopped walking to look at them in fear. They moved like a swarm, no unity but the push of those behind them, constantly changing, forever in turmoil. The mass seemed to notice us, as the individuals at the extremities seemed to be staring at us with the same concentration that we studied them. Stunned by the sheer massive clump of sheep surrounding our party, it slowly dawned on each person that this was no stationary army. It was moving towards us.

Panic set in. Our packs disappeared in our mental images and we became fleet of foot, and we hustled to the left of the flock, moving uphill to try to dodge the relentless crawl of the sheep. It seemed to forever to finally near the edge of the army, and we had to move closer as we avoided natural obstacles such as brush and rock formations.

As we evaded the swarm, I couldn’t help but notice the attention the sheep closest to us always gave. Those beady black eyes, staring, staring into you like they knew you were afraid, like they knew that they had such power over you that it wouldn’t even be a fight. Shake it off, ignore them, I told myself, continue hiking, and don’t let them know your fear.

We hiked on, the army of sheep baying and flowing through the forest of trees, as our lonely band of five adventurers moved through the wilderness. We walked an endless detour around the trail to get past the army, and finally upon regaining the trail at the very rear of the sheep, only then did we meet the general.

He was a sheep rancher who took his herd up to the High Uintas to feed every summer for several months. A couple of his friends would be coming up in a couple of days with more supplies, and they set up a camp and basically live up above 10,000 feet for the entire time. The herd of sheep eats the tundra and everyone is happy. Everyone is happy, yeah right.

We saw death in several thousand white fluffy animals.

We hiked down the rest of the day, the memory of the army covering the crest of all that we could see still fresh in our heads. It has been over a year since that fateful trip, which stands as one of the absolute most interesting backpacks I have ever been on. If you do get a chance to meet an army of sheep on the field of battle, know this: your only chance is to run!

The lines were miles long, another busy Saturday at Wal-Mart. I was on an outlying register, so I couldn’t go on lunch until someone came to relieve me. The customer I was ringing out was buying some Nintendo games, and was absentmindedly shuffling through her purse. Out of nowhere she picked up her head and started to say something garbled. Looking around confused, she stopped mumbling and continued through her purse. She paid me and walked away with her new video games.

She had sounded like an idiot. The sounds she had made were indecipherable from mumbling, the sounds a lunatic makes when they just need to let out their breath. I leaned against the register thinking about why this seemingly random event happened. It occurred to me that it wasn’t random; there must be some good reasons behind it. She must have thought someone she knew was next to her, so she was going to tell them something but stopped when she realized she wasn’t’ there. It couldn’t be random; invariably if you analyze anything enough you find the causes. Before I could get anywhere, my friend Dana showed up with her register tray to relieve me. Lunch time.

After punching in at the time clock, I walked out to my old van through lawn and garden, the same shortcut all the employees take. I go to Subway everyday for lunch, and get exactly the same thing. The customers mumbling kept coming back to my mind. She didn’t do it randomly; I knew that, she was meaning to talk to someone. She was operating under prior assumptions, and those assumptions had changed in the course of her absentmindedness.

I turned the key and started the massive V8 engine. Every time I start it, it seems to get a little older, a little harder to turnover. The ancient van lumbered its way lazily down my well traveled route to subway, and I parked in my normal spot. Why did I park in my normal spot? Tradition I suppose.

As I was ordering my standard 12 inch roasted chicken breast on wheat with cheese, my physics class popped back into my head, as it invariably does. We were covering quantum mechanics. I hated the probability aspect of it. I didn’t want to think that the best way to understand the universe was using probabilities. All those beautiful equations to describe everything, there has to be a description for those little itty bitty particles.

My sub was handed to me by the same red headed chick with the piercing who always works here during the week and I sat down by the window, across the aisle from that weird guy who’s always here. He wanders over from the nursing home everyday at this time for a cup of coffee. Just sort of sitting there, he really doesn’t touch the coffee too much but instead stares out the window at the cars as they pass by. I wondered where his children are, if he had any.
I wondered what awards I would get if I could prove what my intuition said. An equation for everything. An equation for those little itty bitty particles that no one understood. Would they settle with just the Nobel Prize? Nah, it’d have to be something bigger. The Bacon Prize, yeah, they’d have to make a new one in my honor just to compensate.

In my head I threw protons and neutrons together to make some elementary particles. I saw the orbits match and connect into simple molecules. If you knew how the little guys worked, then you’d naturally know how the bigger guys worked. If you knew exactly what was going on with molecules, than chemical reactions would be fairly predictable too. If you got the chemical reactions down pat, simple biological processes would be ho hum. Complex biological processes are just lots of simple ones working together, right? Yeah, if you knew the laws for atoms and were bored enough, you could figure out just what tree a chipmunk would climb up if you chased him.

I made the connection between myself and a chipmunk as I took a big bite of the sandwich. Nearly choking, I took a big swig from my Pepsi. What did I just do? Does that mean I am perfectly and absolutely predictable? Do I have freewill? Of course I do, I must have made a mistake. I reviewed my steps, checking for something I knew was wrong. Only one of two things could be wrong if I was to have control of my actions. Either I have a soul, or there is no equation for the really small particles or wavicles or strings. If I have a soul, then that means that not all of existence obeys the equations I have, and allows for free will. If there isn’t an equation then things aren’t predictable, and the logic I used relies on an equation being present. A soul prevents me from making the chipmunk to human jump.

I put my drink down on the table and stared at it. I don’t believe in god or souls, so I couldn’t debunk it on that respect. Was there an equation? Did I have free will? There had to be an equation, there had to be, throughout history science has found more and more, there hasn’t been anything immune to the scientific method.

The Pepsi cup stared me down, mocking my new found lack of a free will. The cup was half full, making me an optimist, but also tempting me to test my free will. With one hand I knocked the cup over onto the opposite chair, watching the Pepsi flow down the side of the table. That weird guy turned to look at me for an instant, and then continued his study of traffic.

While I drove back I was scared. I had let an idea scare me deeply, let it reach down deep into my head. I had never let it go that deep before, and I’ve never let it go that deep since.

You can admit it, you are probably sick of me harping about how much I move. “Oh I’ve lived everywhere! You’ve done nothing and seen nothing I haven’t enjoyed to its fullest!” I don’t mean to portray myself as a conceited punk, but the truth of the matter is that I move a lot. I freely admit it. I can say where I’ve lived in one breath, and I usually say it just to scare whoever asked me where I’ve lived. But all of my moves have paled in comparison with the last one. I am not unique in this last move, because everyone seems to have made this move.

I moved to college.

One of my friends was worried about going to the Virginia Military Academy. Not sure he could make it, he wondered aloud often what he would do if he dropped out. He told me he had no other options and that no other college he wanted to attend had accepted him. VMI was it. His sentiment is spread among my friends and to me personally. What would I do if I didn’t go to college? Karen would have some choice words, and maybe she is right, college degrees aren’t necessary.

I showed up at college with my dad and my stuff, and wandered into another world. For the first time in my life I wasn’t the only new guy. There were 750 people who had never been to this place, never lived like this, wanted to make a fresh start.

It was amazing. It didn’t stop with orientation. I was living in a world of teenagers. My parents lived on the other side of the continent and none of my close friends were going to school in the same area. The year progressed, I did things I never dreamed I would, some good, some very bad. Classes are ever present, but living in this place causes far more learning than going to class.

I just registered for my next years classes. Another full load of academia is on its way, ready to beat me into submission with its assignments and moronic teachers. This semester has been long, with more than usual involvement in extracurricular activities, full 18 credits of classes, and pledging a fraternity.

But I can’t claim to have it hard. Some of my friends have had the most interesting semester they have ever had, whether that be good, bad, or neither. The minor demon of alcohol had its effects on several of us this semester. One friend’s one night stand that ended up hurting everyone involved, failed relationships, new relationships, it’s enough to still surprise me.

As each day goes on, we move farther from high school, farther from the now idyllic land of study halls and easy classes. When we were there we wanted out, and now some of us want back. I don’t want to go back to a life less complicated. When I entered college I made a decision. I could connect with this place, or I could remain disconnected as I have done before, and never truly feel I belonged.

I connected. Or so I think.

Living in so many places has made it sort of a tradition for me to remain the outsider, and rarely, if ever, do I get to call myself a local. Here in college everyone is an outsider, everyone is not from around here, and everyone had to start anew. This was it, this was my chance. For the first time in my life I wasn’t unique in the fact I was coming from far away. In the end I was actually the local.

If you are reading this you are probably a college student. Chances are you moved here from a healthy home that you lived in for a while, and this has been the largest move in your life. I want to tell you something, I want to tell you how amazing this is. I want to tell you how many people you can meet and be moved by. I want to tell you how rich life can be in this place, how full your day can be! I did more in the past week than in a month of high school.

Karen asked me what the value of a college degree is. College is the biggest learning experience I have ever had in my entire life. I changed cultures, social circles, crossed emotional barriers, and opened my mind. Try doing that at Wal-Mart.

Pure human thought cannot be represented by anything mankind has yet invented or discovered. Its complex processes are so otherworldly that we must be careful in their translations to word. The right side of our brain, responsible for logical thinking, can best be represented by the laws of mathematics and computer programming. The left side possesses the creativity inherent in all of mankind, and it is from this side that poetry comes. Poetic at times, literature can also contain logic and reason. Due to this great care must be taken when writing, because both sides of the brain combine to undertake a task. Critical thinking combines the two realms of thought and remains absolutely necessary in the writing process.

F. Brooks said that “the programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff.” Looking at the extreme form a paper can assume is to examine the poetry-code relationship. A verbose paper which communicates nothing is the polar opposite of a tool which uses no verbal tools but contains all the necessary facts. The optimal paper or literary work utilizes a delicate balance of presentation and content with neither too much nor too little of both.

Poetry, the soul dried on paper, presents emotions in raw form and the notes of someone’s thoughts as they come to them. Emotional and creative human thoughts are not refined by definition, and only with years of converting thoughts into words is a person able to skip intermediate steps and simply furnish a paper with finished words.

The same can be said with the other side of writing. Not employed to describe the human writing process, computer programming is useful as it allows humans to think in a language of pure meaning. Each symbol and keyword has an exact meaning, universal and defined. In poetry each word can adopt many meanings, and an extensive search of the context must be made to derive significance. While computer code remains the same to any reader, poetry redefines itself to each individual.

Writing is the combination of both thought types, and its goal is to produce a literary work that conveys meaning and content to the reader. The writing process cannot be done in one sitting; it is not the primary outpouring of an idea that the author had in his head. Human thoughts are fleeting and not always caught the first time around.

Writing can be a tortuous experience to someone who does not embrace its process well. To combine the logic and creativity of one human thought into the limited tapestry that is language requires skill and patience. Critical thinking, or the analysis of concepts and what they represent, is the key to conveying unique human ideas.

Self improvement is masturbation. – Tyler Dirden

This very quote, as funny as it sounds, has got me scratching my head thinking ‘why do I do what I do in life’. Today I went to work. I pushed carts around with long pants on in 85 degree heat, performed mind numbing bagging, and walked around the store putting stuff away on the shelves. Why do I do all of this? Is everything I do to make my self happy?

Obviously I subject my self to my job so that I can get paid, so I can exchange my blood, sweat and tears for dollar bills. What good is a dollar bill though? Money it self can not make you happy, only the things you buy with it can. Money is 100% potential happiness. So I use this money that took me over 100 hours of work at a job that I hate to buy a pair of skis that allow me to land backwards. Ok now this makes me happy …. right?? Wrong. It’s july and they’re sitting on my bed. So far all of this hard work and anguish has yet to pay off. Okay, so winter comes along and I finally get to use them. I go off a jump in the terrain park and stomp a 180. HELL YEAH!! Now I’m happy, right? Oops, it’s a weekday at seven springs and there isn’t a soul on the slopes. Nobody saw the cool trick I just performed. Why do I even do it then?? The only reason to perform a trick on skis is to impress another person. I come down the hill again and there are a couple of snowboarders sitting at the top of the hill now. This time I float a big 180 and throw in a safety grab. As I’m cruising down the landing of the tabletop-jump backwards I catch a glimpse of one of the snowboarders clapping. Now I am happy.

All of the hard work at Shop ‘N Save 7 months ago, and the anticipation has all finally paid off. It has all paid off because a faceless stranger that I’ve never met, and probably never will meet again was mildly impressed with a jump I did. I spent over $2000 dollars on ski equipment over the summer so that I could impress this stranger. This is what makes me happy. I raise my glass to you stranger, that jump was for you.

Self-Improvement IS masturbation. Anything and Everything we do in life is to make ourselves happy. Money and material objects are simply ways of getting to that eventual goal. So why do we do these things that make us happy? Well in my opinion happiness is the only reason to live. If your not living for happiness then why live at all? Whether it’s doing a trick or giving a girl that I deeply care about a kiss, I do it for me. I makes her happy, which in turn makes me happy.

There is no such thing as a completely self-less act. Sure giving up blood is something you do for another person, but you do it because you want them to be okay. You WANT them to be okay. You do it for YOU and no one else. At first I disagreed with this quote because I misinterpreted it to mean ‘Self Improvment is a waste of time’. When in reality nothing is farther from the truth. Happiness is derived from self improvment, thus self improvment is a reason to live.

~Inspired by the movie Fight Club and a conversation with Brandon Klein~