I’ve been away from my desk these last few months, focusing my attention on my three children home for the summer. But school started this week, so you may see more of me in the coming months.
Recently, my husband Chad embarked on a walkabout journey of Shenandoah, along the Appalachian Trail, 150 miles of tough terrain, including one stretch known as “the roller coaster.” He left in an Uber before dawn on a Saturday morning, bound for the airport, leaving a note for each of us. Mine read, “Just a walk in the woods.”
But on that roller coaster Day 2, he injured his ankle and thought he couldn’t go on. He considered renting a car and driving home. “No,” I told him. “Try icing, resting. Get a hotel and have a beer. See how you feel in the morning.” Knowing he’d always wonder ‘what if’ if he did step off the trail, I urged him on, even though I also worried he’d get stuck alone somewhere, unable to walk. In my mind, the risk of further injury did not compare to the disappointment I knew he’d feel later, on some cold, wintery workday, sitting at his desk. That future emotional toll felt bigger than any current physical one, the cost of trying and not completing a big goal.
In the almost two weeks he was away, hiking 10-18 miles a day, mostly by himself, in rain or heat, I thought a lot about that night and why I urged him on, specifically why his continuing the journey felt so important to me. I wondered why we set such big goals, not only physically and emotionally challenging, but in our case, logistically, as well. We have three young children to care for. He has a demanding career. We are in our 40s. This was not an easy trip to plan, much less carry out.
I asked myself, if life is about surviving, what does it mean if our survival is never truly questioned? Will life feel real or complete if it never is?
Literature might have the answer, in stories about characters overcoming obstacles, emerging from them changed beings, likely more enlightened, stronger, celebrated. Consider any Greek hero, for example. What would the kingdom mean to Theseus if he’d merely inherited his throne? He felt he had to earn it. He volunteered to kill the Minotaur, choosing to travel to him the hard way, through dangerous forests, what others saw as an impossible feat. Only then, he knew, would he be wise and mature enough to become king.
Perhaps we are modern-day Greek heroes, needing to seek danger outside the palace walls.
But Chad and I have challenges at home, don’t we? Three young and needy children, aging pets, aging bodies with chronic disease, property to maintain, bills to pay. Hardly a palace life. Finding bigger challenges feels a little like NASA making trips to the moon while our planet burns (the problems in this analogy are not to scale). What do such trips accomplish? Why focus on landing on the moon when we have problems to solve on Earth, like climate change, hunger, unchecked disease, poverty? One argument NASA has given is that we on earth benefit from ‘spin-offs,’ byproducts of their forward thinking, like memory foam, freeze-dried food, firefighting equipment, emergency "space blankets", DustBusters, cochlear implants, LZR Racer swimsuits, and CMOS image sensors.
Chad, too, found spinoffs from his challenge. He lost weight, gained muscle, no doubt strengthened his bones and honed his balance, all of which he wouldn’t accomplish working long hours from a desk. He also realized how simple life can be, using one pot to cook in and carrying one change of clothes on his back. Every night, he said, he assessed his shelter, his food and water, and health. That’s all that mattered.
Life is struggle, a constant negotiation between being and nonbeing, Kierkegaard once wrote. He called this constant state of anticipation ‘dread.’ In other words, in our daily lives, we live with an overwhelming feeling of helplessness in the face of change. Perhaps the only way to escape such dread is by overcoming great obstacles, feeling in the moment somewhat invincible, as though one might overcome death itself—or at least know how to handle that change when it comes.
But, what if we never feel that sense of accomplishment? Kierkegaard’s theory suggests we will live in an unbalanced state, creating problems that impede progress.
A recent theory (called the ‘hygiene hypothesis’), posited by immunologists studying the rise in allergies and asthma, might support this assumption. It suggests that by becoming too clean as a society--using hand sanitizer, avoiding contact with animals and nature, taking frequent antibiotics—we have made life too easy for our immune systems. In the absence of overcoming challenges, our immune systems have weakened, becoming like bored princes in pristine palaces. Our immune systems learn to fight disease by fighting germs. In the absence of germs, our systems become unbalanced, and other problems (allergies, asthma, autoimmune disease) ensue.
If life is about struggle, and we find meaning and balance in overcoming struggle, we will no doubt create challenge in the absence of it, and our small challenges will then become big ones. And in this disjoint, we will perceive something wrong. Life won’t add up. And who wants to make their busy schedule the focus of their dread? Who wants to become paralyzed by small worries?
Perhaps I knew all this before, when I urged Chad on his trip. Perhaps I recognized he wasn’t ‘just’ taking a walk in the woods. That he might have been saving his soul.
Yes, let’s go with that.
A great read Jody! Congratulations to Chad!