The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.
This quotation has been ascribed to Mark Twain (but appears nowhere in his writing--maybe it was Shania). I’d hold it near to my heart save for one thing: why must we seek an advantage over others? The advantage sought ought to be over our former selves.
With this in mind, I now refer to references referred to...
Throughout this trip’s recording I’ve made repeated references to poetic outlaws and prominent authors. These are the folx whose work and inner workings I examine closely, the folx whose ideas and ideals have shaped much of my life. (I like big books and I cannot lie.)
I’ve listed them for future personal reference, in the event my mind goes missing sooner than anticipated and I find myself needing something captivating to read--or, in the case of video links, something stimulating to watch. To a slighter extent I’ve listed them for your potential enlightenment--I believe in sharing. And in we are what we read. But a word of warning: read ‘em at your own peril. They could change your life! Or they might simply alter or augment your present line of thinking, which could be dangerous enough.
If they do nothing for you, or you choose not to read them, well then, that’s your prerogative. Like many readers, I have a hard time respecting those too busy to read or those whose attention spans cannot outlast their next thought. Hey look! A squirrel!
I’ve attempted to list these sources in order of personal importance and/or personal enjoyment, flavored to taste. But I find them all to hold merit. (Some of my fondest thru-hike memories are of rainy days stuck inside a tent, stuck inside a readable rabbit hole. The life inside a book was often better than my own.)
If they do nothing for you, or you choose not to read them, well then, that’s your prerogative. Like many readers, I have a hard time respecting those too busy to read or those whose attention spans cannot outlast their next thought. Hey look! A squirrel!
I’ve attempted to list these sources in order of personal importance and/or personal enjoyment, flavored to taste. But I find them all to hold merit. (Some of my fondest thru-hike memories are of rainy days stuck inside a tent, stuck inside a readable rabbit hole. The life inside a book was often better than my own.)
I haven’t included publishers or dates published, since that crap doesn’t matter.
Tread lightly. Read heavily.
The Internet. (Slogan 1: Bringing the Worst Out of Humanity. Slogan 2: Encouraging You to Delve into the Darkest Parts of Your Mind.) Citing Cyberia is perhaps disingenuous in that it’s the sources within I should divulge, but that takes much time, work and space. I suppose I can whittle it down by specifying Google.
Tread lightly. Read heavily.
~~~~~~~~~~
The Internet. (Slogan 1: Bringing the Worst Out of Humanity. Slogan 2: Encouraging You to Delve into the Darkest Parts of Your Mind.) Citing Cyberia is perhaps disingenuous in that it’s the sources within I should divulge, but that takes much time, work and space. I suppose I can whittle it down by specifying Google.
For its many evils* Google is an absolute asset. It is the hive mind, the Global Brain--where we go to share or access information. (*Evils? Sure, why not?! Google impairs memory. But just as well. Life leads to death and in death, what is there to remember?)
Abbey, Edward. Desert Solitaire and other nonfiction. After an initial near-death experience, Solitaire’s now a living masterpiece. It’s sacred stuff and would be banned in some countries (and may well be here someday). I implore you to kick-start your Ed-ucation and read every campfire talk / chapter thoroughly, then frequently. Ignore the machismo cowboy schtick, take notes, dog-ear pages, underline, highlight, then toss it at something big and glassy. (Abbey’s books should not be set aside gently; they should be thrown with great force.) No other vade mecum has had an effect on my life like this one; I’m fortunate to own a signed copy. (Signed by me.)
Thoreau, Henry. Walden. But you already knew this. Hank’s ornamental prose is difficult for we modern plebeians to decipher. And its effect, well. See “foot”note below.
Carlin, George. Brain Droppings Preface. Like Carlin, I am a personal optimist but a considerable--and inconsiderate--skeptic of humanity. See also various videos of his online (e.g., Save the Planet). Carlin is our Twain.
London, Jack. The Call of the Wild. Within each of us a primordial beast lays in wait. Or waits in laze.
Twain, Mark. Roughing It and others. Twain should be required reading in school. And life is school. When life gives you Clemens...
Abbey, Edward. Desert Solitaire and other nonfiction. After an initial near-death experience, Solitaire’s now a living masterpiece. It’s sacred stuff and would be banned in some countries (and may well be here someday). I implore you to kick-start your Ed-ucation and read every campfire talk / chapter thoroughly, then frequently. Ignore the machismo cowboy schtick, take notes, dog-ear pages, underline, highlight, then toss it at something big and glassy. (Abbey’s books should not be set aside gently; they should be thrown with great force.) No other vade mecum has had an effect on my life like this one; I’m fortunate to own a signed copy. (Signed by me.)
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| OMG! He still reads PAPER?! |
Carlin, George. Brain Droppings Preface. Like Carlin, I am a personal optimist but a considerable--and inconsiderate--skeptic of humanity. See also various videos of his online (e.g., Save the Planet). Carlin is our Twain.
London, Jack. The Call of the Wild. Within each of us a primordial beast lays in wait. Or waits in laze.
Twain, Mark. Roughing It and others. Twain should be required reading in school. And life is school. When life gives you Clemens...
Ryback, Eric. The High Adventure of Eric Ryback. Besides War and Peace and other children’s pamphlets, this was the first book my adolescent ADD brain managed to get through, cover to cover. It altered my dreams, then my reality.
Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. Another book that skewed me life’s trajectory. The film adaptation is faithful to the book and comes with a great soundtrack. A GREAT soundtrack.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Any and all. Fried Rich is hard, hard reading, but all too important. Even Hitler, the late-life vegetarian, was inspired by the guy, so he can’t be that bad.
Ruess, Everett. Journals, et al. In 1934, at age 20, Ruess vanished while hiking in Utah’s slickrock country. He was soon presumed dead and is now assuredly so. Thankfully, his writing lives on.
Mowat, Farley. Never Cry Wolf and A Whale for the Killing. A wordsmith of the highest order, yet somehow under-appreciated, except maybe in his homeland.
McManus, Patrick. A Fine and Pleasant Misery and others. One of the funniest thought jockeys I’ve read.
Fletcher, Colin. The Man Who Walked Through Time, The Complete Walker and others. Fletcher was an immense inspiration to my pimply adolescent mind.
Proenneke, Dick. One Man’s Wilderness. Upon retirement at 51, Proenneke migrated to a then-remote part of Alaska, infringed upon his very own Leave No Trace ethic by erecting a log cabin (with non-motorized hand tools), and lived there for three decades, alone and content. A simple man, a simple read, simply inspiring.
Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac. A true nature book--gack!--but there are countless pearls of wisdom within. Perhaps best via audio.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Nature. Akin to his neighbor Thoreau, Waldo wrote heavy-handedly; one must really want to read his work (or be forced to in college). Still, I deem it vital.
Bryson, Bill. A Walk in the Woods. Bryson’s a weak thru-hiker, but he’s a robust penman. I suggest reading everything of his; it may not enlighten, but it’ll leave you laughing aloud. Other than orgasm, laughing’s life’s loveliest part.
Miller, David. AWOL’s AT Guidebook. Until GPS apps take over the world this is the only worthwhile AT guide; don’t leave home without it. (Or, rather, do.) I passed my copy onto a thru-hike hopeful, but you didn’t read that here.
Matthiessen, Peter. The Snow Leopard. Not exactly a top-ten book (terse, dated, dry and altogether too “Hey, look, another well-to-do American who’s traveled to impoverished places and found enlightenment”), but so well-constructed it’s tough to discredit.
Louv, Richard. The Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. The title says it all. We children of the world are doomed, no thanks to our parents.
Kaczynski, ‘Ted.’ (The Unabomber.) Industrial Society & its Future, his manifesto. No, seriously…
Some Ted talk. I suspect I could catch flak by citing a convicted killer, but I shan’t apologize for doing so. Here are the headings within the popular loner’s manifesto...
The psychology of modern leftism
Feelings of inferiority
Oversocialization
The power process
Surrogate activities
Autonomy
Sources of social problems
Disruption of the power process in modern society
How some people adjust
The motives of scientists
The nature of freedom
Some principles of history
Industrial-technological society cannot be reformed
Restriction of freedom is unavoidable in industrial society
The ‘bad’ parts of technology cannot be separated from the ‘good’ parts
Technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom
Simpler social problems have proved intractable
Revolution is easier than reform
Control of human behavior
Human race at a crossroads
Human suffering
The future
Strategy
Two kinds of technology
The danger of leftism
All serious substance, I’m afraid. But it’s the stuff we should take seriously.
I fear I may have dropped some writers through the memory hole--Whitman, Muir, Dillard--since I am absent-minded, careless and disorganized. (Make that unorganized; disorganized suggests some semblance of order.) But I’ve never had much of a memory gland; the above authors are those I do remember.
I further fear I cannot refer to the other junk I read--or tried to read--on this hike, not without a criminal conscience. I am quite critical. Especially with various online Appalachian Trail journals. But there is one masterpiece that stands out: Then the Hail Came, written by George Steffanos during his 1983 thru-hike. In reading his, I am thankful some hikers keep journals and take the time, and the risk of criticism and/or scorn, to make them public. Equally so, I am thankful most hikers aren’t journal keepers. They inflict little harm this way, and little harm comes their way.
Ultimately, we’re fortunate we’re free to read what we want--most us hominids, anyway. Still, I envy the animals, who aren’t forced to think in words, and who’ve got more important things to do.
"Foot"note: It is clear the effect Thoreau, Abbey and others have had on humankind has been naught. The all-mighty dollar--"growth"--squashes all in its path. Wild Nature once mattered, but not to domesticated man.
The psychology of modern leftism
Feelings of inferiority
Oversocialization
The power process
Surrogate activities
Autonomy
Sources of social problems
Disruption of the power process in modern society
How some people adjust
The motives of scientists
The nature of freedom
Some principles of history
Industrial-technological society cannot be reformed
Restriction of freedom is unavoidable in industrial society
The ‘bad’ parts of technology cannot be separated from the ‘good’ parts
Technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom
Simpler social problems have proved intractable
Revolution is easier than reform
Control of human behavior
Human race at a crossroads
Human suffering
The future
Strategy
Two kinds of technology
The danger of leftism
All serious substance, I’m afraid. But it’s the stuff we should take seriously.
~~~~~~~~~~
I fear I may have dropped some writers through the memory hole--Whitman, Muir, Dillard--since I am absent-minded, careless and disorganized. (Make that unorganized; disorganized suggests some semblance of order.) But I’ve never had much of a memory gland; the above authors are those I do remember.
I further fear I cannot refer to the other junk I read--or tried to read--on this hike, not without a criminal conscience. I am quite critical. Especially with various online Appalachian Trail journals. But there is one masterpiece that stands out: Then the Hail Came, written by George Steffanos during his 1983 thru-hike. In reading his, I am thankful some hikers keep journals and take the time, and the risk of criticism and/or scorn, to make them public. Equally so, I am thankful most hikers aren’t journal keepers. They inflict little harm this way, and little harm comes their way.
Ultimately, we’re fortunate we’re free to read what we want--most us hominids, anyway. Still, I envy the animals, who aren’t forced to think in words, and who’ve got more important things to do.
"Foot"note: It is clear the effect Thoreau, Abbey and others have had on humankind has been naught. The all-mighty dollar--"growth"--squashes all in its path. Wild Nature once mattered, but not to domesticated man.
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