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Internal Goods of My Practice
The Internal Goods of My Practice … or … the Small Yesses that point to something. Definition Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre wrote about the concept of “Internal Goods of Practice”. The idea has been quite useful to me in terms of: 1) examining my adventure, and 2) creating more quality within my adventures. My backpacking is…
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Making Sense at the Lake
This story takes place in September of 2015 at a place that I call “Discovery Lake”. There are no trails to Discovery Lake, but I had bushwacked there twice before (so I thought I knew how to get there). It took me 2 full days to get to the lake. Day One was a bit…
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Hiking on Purpose
Thoreau once wrote that he went to the woods “to live deliberately“. To live deliberately means to live (to decide and to act) with intention and with some clarity of focus. I like to know why I am on trips … especially difficult or challenging trips. I like, for example, to have a clear sense…
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Hellroaring Lakes: A Simple Calling-Dharma Story
The idea of having a “Calling” (with a capital “C”) has intrigued me for decades. Even before I knew what a Calling was, I had experienced many moments that I can best characterize by two phrases: “I was meant to be here!” “I was meant to do this!” And then I started to read about…
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Stories & Storytelling
In the end, my trips will be the stories that I have told. This is true even if I am the only one that I tell those stories to. In the end, my life will be the stories that I have told. This is true even if I am the only one that I tell…
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Appreciation, Gratitude and the Gifts
Here’s an analogy. Person X was born with some abilities and capacities that enabled them in their youth and adult life to be a fast runner. Person X was “born fast”. They are fast. But that doesn’t stop them from working hard to become even faster. They can commit to “fastness”; they can learn more,…
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The Myth of Sisyphus, and …
There are three versions of the Myth of Sisyphus that I am aware of. The first version is the original one. In Ancient Greek mythology Sisyphus displeases the gods, and they sentence him to roll a heavy boulder up a hill. Once he gets to the top of the hill with the boulder the gods…
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Attention and Adventure
Attention is one of the keys to adventure. Adventure requires that I focus on the right things. Adventure requires that I develop the skills to focus on X and Y, and not on B or C. It also requires that I attend to some things that may not be visible to the naked eye. “An…
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The Catastrophe and Mistakes
The Catastrophe is full of surprises. It is full of uncertainty and risk. It is full of disappointments, and failures, and mistakes. (It’s also full of some other things, but more on that in later posts). To adventure is to fail … over and over again. To adventure is to fail seven times, and to…
12 Ideas that Rocked My World 