Conscious Choice: Lost and Found

October 2003

Lost and Found

A Homeric hike yields deep insights and insect bites

by Peter Cashmore

I stood alone in the isolated forest clearing, with only one path stretching out before me. Like an explorer venturing out into an unknown continent, I opened my mouth wide to inhale the fresh country air, caught a fly in my throat, turned bright red, had a choking fit, fell forward, banged my head on a rock, and lay pinned to the ground by my 25 pound backpack while moaning quietly for 15 minutes.

I had been planning this weekend hiking expedition for weeks. I wanted to be utterly alone in the Scottish Highlands to "find myself"...and to find out exactly what that meant. As I recovered from my wrestling match with the backpack and started on the trail, I wondered if finding myself had something to do with giving myself the breathing space and "distance" to see my everyday life more objectively.

A modern life, I pondered, is a saturated life — every moment crammed with something to occupy one’s attention. Probably 10 times a day I’d turn on the TV simply to flick through all the channels, find nothing was on, and click it off again. Almost as often, I would log on to the Internet to check my e-mail, knowing full well I would not have any, yet feign surprise at the empty inbox and log off again.

Amazing, I thought — just 10 minutes had passed, and already I was being profound!

Within half an hour of setting off, my surroundings were becoming distinctly more rugged. What came next was the first true test of the real me, whoever that was.

I had just enjoyed a lovely packed lunch overlooking a breathtaking valley formed by the meeting of two gigantic mountain ranges. Was the real me, I wondered, a simple man overcome by nature’s beauty? Then I was jolted into remembering that my campsite was somewhere between those mountains — with a river flowing between it and me! Realizing it would be at least a two-hour walk back to the fork in the trail, I boldly threw caution, boots, and socks to the wind and raced through the raging torrent. Before my body knew what had hit it, I was on the other side, trudging off into the valley. It had been a straightforward task, and I had carried it out by casting my inhibitions to the Highland winds.

Perhaps this was the self I was trying to find!

It was four o’clock when I finally reached the campsite. I put up the tent in an hour. A long time — but to be fair, the instructions were in Arabic.

Nearly another hour later, I had heated up a lukewarm slurry and retired with it to the tent to sup and speculate. Between slurps, I recalled my lifelong wish to play electric guitar. At home, it would have seemed a ludicrous idea, but here...why not? If I amassed all those wasted minutes doing things like flicking over TV channels, I might free up some time to practice. And while I was at it, hadn’t I always wanted to take up golf? Why not take classes on the weekends? And then there was that parachute jump. Is that so unreasonable? And then I’ll learn to fly a plane, and climb Mt. Everest, and become an astronaut, and and and...

My thoughts were interrupted by the call of nature. Unzipping my tent, I was instantly seized upon by a swarm of biting, stabbing insects.

I had listened skeptically before to horror stories of "the midges." Here, it seemed, they had been sent by Satan himself to eat out my eyes. Clambering back into the tent, I discovered that — contrary to all known laws of diffusion — there now were more of the little beggars inside than out. That night was a true trial, especially for my bladder.

The next morning — my last day — allowed no time for soul searching. Though I was quite sure I had successfully "found myself," I still had difficulty defining what that meant. At home, I could never really see the full picture of what I wanted to do, because it was so often obscured by what I was already so busily doing. Now, I could see that some small changes were necessary — like watching less TV and getting more exercise — and deeper changes too, like looking at life more simply, working less, and learning to live for today.

So I had been right from the start: "Finding myself" meant getting out of my life and looking in to see what I needed to change to make myself happier.

It was no dictionary definition, but it was good enough for me.

Scottish writer Peter Cashmore has recovered from his midge bites and is probably strumming his brand new Fender right this second.

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