“How could we expect anyone else to understand the peculiar
exhilaration that we drew from this bareness, when man’s natural tendency is to
be attracted to everything in nature that is lush and fruitful?” (Herzog,
76/77)
Herzog
contemplates this as he writes about overlooking the Great Barrier. I am the
first to admit that I am a sucker for everything lush and fruitful. My favorite
landscape hands down is a lush rainforest, where you feel so absorbed by life,
by the immense excitement of living. I would much prefer to be surrounded by
budding flowers, over-acrching trees and waterfalls than I would look out at a
desert. Nevertheless when I read this quote I was able to view bareness in a
different way. Herzog refers to the magnificence of the Great Barrier, these
lone peaks that seem to rule over everything else.
We are always multi-tasking, always
surrounded by multiple forms of stimulation. It is hard to separate out what we
are seeing vs. what we are smelling vs. what we are hearing, feeling, or even
what is before us vs. what we are creating in our minds. We therefore are so
rarely able to genuinely enjoy the true essence of one sight, or one sound, or
the brilliance of one thought. I have never been good at meditating, but I find
the idea fascinating. To me, the solitude of bear nature is the closest
comparison I can draw.
What came to mind reading this
quote was the strange exhilaration I get from what I am going to call a pure silence.
Not silence because everyone is working in the library, in fact not even
silence meaning no noise, but the silence you get when you are the only human
presence around. In the summer I love taking walks on the beach at sunset. I
always spend a moment before I leave where I stand very still, and just listen
to the waves, appreciating that I am allowed to share this moment with nature.
The silence feels so soothing on my ears. When I read Herzog’s quote I realized
that for the hiker, the lone mountain peak is their form of meditation. Just as
dogs have a keen sense of smell to make up for their weak sight, the less we
have going on the more we are able to enjoy it. Stopping is hard, when everything in society tells us to go,
go, go, get as much done in as little time as possible. I can see now that up
there in the mountains, just as on the beach, that pressure melts away,
allowing us to perceive each sense to its full extent.
I agree that a mountain can be a form of meditation, but I wonder if the mountaineers on this expedition saw this particular experience as something they are allowed to share with nature. Herzog certainly takes moments to look stop and look at the surrounding landscape, but these moments seems to come few and far between his planning of an "attack" on the mountain. To me, Herzog's expedition seemed much less like a friendship with nature and much more like a battle with nature.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, it seems like nature rather than society is the one telling the team to " go, go, go, get as much done is as little time as possible." In my mind, these men did not leave the mountain with the satisfaction of meditation and connection with nature. Rather, they came in full gear, ready for battle, and were allowed a brief moment of "victory" before experiencing the full wrath of mother nature.