The Fresh Promise of a New Day

The birds start their days between 0450 and 0500. How sensible they are! There is just enough light to see the outlines of the mountains, yet a planet or two is still visible. Dawn is always like this; fresh and full of promise.

If I had a tripod I might try to photograph dawn. But that may be the wrong approach. The appeal of dawn is only partly visual.The other senses awaken. Most of all, the imagination awakens.

Nobody at the campground is up. They sleep through the best part of the day. What are they thinking -- that it is too cold at dawn? There are no mosquitoes at this time of the day, and that is no small advantage. Colorado is not a bug-free state like New Mexico. There is no wind at this time of the day. No rain.

But the true miracle of dawn is that the world is not over-populated. Still, I would like to see a lonely campfire, making some cowboy coffee. I might even invite myself in and try to find out how that person thinks.

Philosophical Ripples from the River Rats

It is always enjoyable to see people having fun in the outdoors. I even like studying their exotic and expensive equipment. And I did so once again, this time with river rats, aka, whitewater kayakers. But I should have left well enough alone.

Once the first flush of interest was over I asked one of the kayakers whether his sport was good for his moral character. He acted as if nobody had ever asked him that before.

It isn't as silly as it sounds: hobbies, activities, and sports all have philosophical implications. Looked at in this light, whitewater kayaking is all about getting 'a thrill a minute', that is, risk and excitement for the sake of themselves. 

So how does one become addicted to the drug of excitement and go home and deal with the drudgery that is inevitable in normal living?

What would these river wild men around me think if they sat down and read Bertrand Russell's "The Conquest of Happiness"? Especially the chapter on "Boredom and Excitement."

A person accustomed to too much excitement is like a person with a morbid craving for pepper, who comes at last to be unable even to taste a quantity of pepper which would cause anyone else to choke. There is an element of boredom which is inseparable from the avoidance of too much excitement, and too much excitement not only undermines the health, but dulls the palate for every kind of pleasure, substituting titillations for profound organic satisfactions, cleverness for wisdom, and jagged surprises for beauty. I do not want to push to extremes the objection to excitement...

And indeed, neither do I. What would be the sport that has the opposite characteristics of kayaking? Hiking, which has no excitement whatsoever. Naturally it is popular with women.

The whole issue of outdoor excitement shows that I am married to Aristotle's doctrine of the Golden Mean, as boring at this doctrine is to the young.

It might not be exciting, Pops, but it's delightful.