7/24/00
Day 123
Goddard shelter, VT
1600.4 miles

So far, so good.  I haven't tripped and injured myself yet, but I suppose there's always a chance during a late night foray to the privy...  Now that I'm in Vermont I'm getting back into the land of big mountains, and the climb up this one, Glastenbury, seemed long enough.  This shelter actually has a view back toward Mt. Greylock in Mass., which looks surprisingly far away.

Today I covered only about 14 miles and arrived here early afternoon.  There are a few other letters I've been meaning to write, in addition to this one which I've been pretty lax with of late, and the plan is that shorter days will give me the time to catch up on correspondance.

It's bothered me that I mostly just cover daily events and details here, and never move on to discuss weightier matters.  The Trail does give one a lot of time for thinking, and when my head isn't filled with nonsense songs from my childhood, the occasional deep thought has been known to pass between my ears.

The first few days I was hiking I was having an imaginary conversation in my head with my ex-boss.  The reason it was an imaginary conversation is because I never had the chance to have the real thing.  The circumstances of my terminating my employment at Mercy Hospital (for the second time) were as follows:

• I had agreed to come back to work partly because I didn't want to abandon them during the year when all computer systems had to be upgraded for Y2K.

• I wanted to regain my office and other perks of seniority that I felt had unfairly been taken from me when I had changed my status to per-diem.

• I had spent a lot of money on the trip to New Zealand and coming back to Mercy was the fastest, easiest way to reverse the frightening trend in my cash flow.

Which brings me back to the imaginary conversation I was having with him the first few days I was hiking.  It started, of course, with the details of my departure, but then it came down to me trying to justify why I had made this decision.  And I had to ask, "What do you think we're supposed to do with this life?"  And for the rest of the day I tried to come up with answers to that question.

Biology dictates that the purpose of life is to procreate and to die.  Breed so that life continues, and die so that change is possible.  But that's not the answer for me.  I have no desire to father children (no objection, though, to going through the motions, so to speak), and certainly no desire to raise them.  I have no genetic traits that I think are vital to the next generation.  And I think many, if not most, of the world's ills are traceable to unchecked population growth and our refusal to apply the same breeding principles to humans that we've used for centuries on crops and domestic animals.

Religion claims that the purpose of life is to serve God.  If I even believed there was such a being, I could only conclude that He is a heartless, malicious bastard.  Case in point:  mosquitoes!  If mankind is some sort of experiment or cruel game He's playing to amuse Himself, then He should pull the plug and get Himself into therapy.

Society wants us to be productive - to fulfill our expected roles.  And this is what I assume my ex-boss expected from me.  But I've always thought it was a raw deal.  To spend the best hours of each day working so that you can sustain yourself long enough to return and work another day.  To spend 50 weeks a year working so that you can take 2 weeks off for vacation.  To spend 45 or more years of your life working so that you can save enough to live on for the few remaining years when you're too tired and feeble to enjoy life.

What does the individual, the self, perceive as the purpose of life?  Is it a heedless, hedonistic search for pleasure?  Is it the attainment of power, prestige, wealth?  Is there some universal meaning, or is it unique to each person?