Excerpt, The Power of Love

8:06 pm. The gnats are back.

Still Awake. Yes. Awake and philosophical here. On this solo trip. This endlessly analyzed and second guessed experience. An experience very different from the one most people are having on this river right now. Just now- a small and menacing scorpion was found crawling among the ledges, among the drying clothes and dishes. My enjoyment of ledgy camps, I suspect, has now permanently been altered in favor of beaches. Larger beaches, if possible. Preferably islands. Or at least, peninsulas.

I have been reading more of the tome of Canyon literature. There is certainly some good stuff in there. Ah, but the damn literary fluff! Fluff in general that I have little patience for. This place breeds it like the Tamarisk!

Am I becoming a grumpy old man?

Down here in this canyon, my thoughts drift to what I am fleeing from. What I have left behind. The world has lately been a very disenchanting and difficult place for most people. How nice it is to have a river. How grounding to surround oneself with the solidity of rock. In the grand scheme of things, very few of our contemporary problems really do matter. This river will keep on flowing, these mountains will keep on eroding, and eventually some other formations will be deposited over these ones. These thoughts do not tonight inspire terror or fear. Rather, coming to terms with just how trivial most things we attach so much importance on to is a tremendously liberating thing...

I am disconnected from society. Yes, I have been for quite some time. I was a recession casualty who was laid off and who was informed by a voicemail that his unemployment claim was denied. Like most Americans I do feel threatened by a political and economic system I view primarily as an external threat to myself and precious little as something I actually have any control over or might possibly benefit from. Unlike most, I rarely feel the need to disguise my desire for armed insurrection behind an infatuation with Zombie films or Apocalypticism.

While I this was occurring, I did have the good luck to not be as tied down as most of my fellow countrymen. I was able in May of 2009 to effect a geographical component to my social alienation by giving up my apartment in Denver to live in a tent and guide full time in South East Utah. As a political scientist, and a man who cares about other people and the planet, was this irresponsible for me to do? Am I not, indeed, largely politically irrelevant and removed from the debates and struggles that will determine our future? Am I even still registered to vote anywhere?

I cannot deny it. This is the case. But I have discovered something far greater in my disconnection. I feel I have been able to attain a greater sense of peace, and greater appreciation of my fellow creatures, than those who only curse at them in traffic or mutter prejudiced, disparaging comments while reading a newspaper. Getting out of the "grab what you can" rat race has been key to this process. Did not many prophets historically find it necessary to give up their possessions before they could discover what is truly important?

Tonight I recall the words of Jimi Hendrix. Not always the most articulate or theoretical representative of his generation. But a man who was clearly onto something when he said, “When the power of love overcomes our love of power, then the world will know peace.”