Is it good or bad to declare solidarity with an animal species other than the one everybody says you belong to?
That question is unavoidable as I look out my trailer's door to see a half dozen trekkers per day on their way north on the 800 mile Arizona Trail. Of course I can't know whether they are doing the entire course.
How do you explain these people? Is it simply an ego-achievement sort of thing, like running a marathon? Or are they reinventing a religious experience in a post-Christian, secular age? If so, we should call them 'los peregrinos,' the pilgrims.
Or are they actually having fun? If they consider 800 miles of water-less, hot, blistering trudging -- plodding! -- to be fun... well, they aren't the same animal species as me!
It is so easy to understand the fun of my dog as we start off in the morning, biking slightly downhill. Soon she is blasting away at 20 mph, even though she is going on 12 years old. We have to run the gauntlet along yard after yard of fenced-in dogs who are envious of her, and howl their heads off. Then my dog just runs faster.
When we reach an open field, I snap her off-leash. When she sees a raven flying low, she goes into her Roadrunner & Coyote routine, and flies across the field in pursuit. This kind of happiness I understand.
But how do you explain those peregrinos of the Arizona Trail? At least they are more stylish than most hikers with hiking-parasols mounted to their backpacks. I just can't understand the neo-Puritan soul of the Church of the Holy Green. Where is the "Holy Land" that they plod to?
That question is unavoidable as I look out my trailer's door to see a half dozen trekkers per day on their way north on the 800 mile Arizona Trail. Of course I can't know whether they are doing the entire course.
How do you explain these people? Is it simply an ego-achievement sort of thing, like running a marathon? Or are they reinventing a religious experience in a post-Christian, secular age? If so, we should call them 'los peregrinos,' the pilgrims.
Or are they actually having fun? If they consider 800 miles of water-less, hot, blistering trudging -- plodding! -- to be fun... well, they aren't the same animal species as me!
It is so easy to understand the fun of my dog as we start off in the morning, biking slightly downhill. Soon she is blasting away at 20 mph, even though she is going on 12 years old. We have to run the gauntlet along yard after yard of fenced-in dogs who are envious of her, and howl their heads off. Then my dog just runs faster.
When we reach an open field, I snap her off-leash. When she sees a raven flying low, she goes into her Roadrunner & Coyote routine, and flies across the field in pursuit. This kind of happiness I understand.
But how do you explain those peregrinos of the Arizona Trail? At least they are more stylish than most hikers with hiking-parasols mounted to their backpacks. I just can't understand the neo-Puritan soul of the Church of the Holy Green. Where is the "Holy Land" that they plod to?
Comments
https://mcsally.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/us-rep-mcsally-become-first-member-congress-hike-800-mile-arizona-trail
Representative McSally is a member of the House from my domicile district and is trying to become a Senator in the race to fill outgoing Senator Flake's slot. If she wins there will then be two war hawk Senators from Arizona since Senator McCain appears to want to die in office rather than retire.
But I can't tell you that you are wrong.
Obviously,if somebody enjoys trekking on foot, nobody is helped if they stop liking it -- and I don't WANT them to stop liking it, just to please me!
I was doubting whether they really DO like such a slow-moving sport, or whether they thought that enduring the boredom guaranteed them a place in Heaven, sitting upon the right hand side of Gandhi or Thoreau or Wordsworth.