Weekend 5 - Mt. Taranaki

When I was little and I got upset I would say "I want to go home". Even to this day when I am upset I feel the desire to utter these words. Although, we never knew what I meant by 'home' because half the time I said it when I was at home. But I think that the home I was yearning was in essence no home at all. I wanted to escape whatever it was that was upsetting me. This trip has been an escape.

There is one feeling I love the most in life and it is the feeling of having absolutely no purpose. I love these moments because they are rare and have to be captured to be appreciated. It is in these moments that we must conquer our mind which is telling us to plan or to do instead of just be. When I have no purpose I feel what it means to exist, to simply breathe and feel the air passing in and out of my body. That is what life is, the air we breathe, the sensations we feel... When I am in this content purposeless state nothing is a means to an end everything just is. Nothing has a purpose other than to live. The tree is not there to serve anyone, it is there to exist. But its existence provides a home for the birds, shade for the horse laying beneath it, oxygen for us to breathe. It fits beautifully by just being. That is what nature does, it serves its own purpose but it all fits.

In contrast to the peaceful state we were in the day before, lacking purpose other than just taking in the world around us. The second day we hiked 25 kilometers (a 3 day circuit) in 7 hours. It was taxing, but we had a goal and we were going to achieve it. So we went up and we went down and we went up again as we went over mountains and through valleys letting our feet do the work as our minds wandered aimlessly. It was hard to fathom the distance we had covered as we looked at the trail cutting across the land behind us. It felt good to accomplish the goal we had set out on, it felt good to have a purpose.

This weekend reminded me that escape can come in many forms. Life is whatever you want it to be... if you're not happy with the picture, change the angle.