The Whale Belly

I’m all nerves at the moment. I went camping in Big Bend and had no opportunities to sit down and write. Now as I return to it, I’m filled with doubts. I wonder why I do this to myself when there are far better things I could be doing both for myself and for others, more immediate things. I have doubts about my abilities to write, that there is any value in what I produce, that this isn’t just some vain, masturbatory activity.

In my agitation I brought my fist down hard on my computer tower and it shorted. It came back on, but my hand stung and I was shocked by my behavior. Even now my airway feels constricted in my chest and a dull ache throbs around my temples.

Two days ago I was hiking Emory Peak in Big Bend without a care in the world other than keeping my breath even and spotting Mexican jays and scrub-jays with my binoculars. It was early and I was alone. A golden sunrise crept over the ridge of the Chisos Mountains and the air was cool. I got to the top after a couple of hours hiking and a short scramble up some rocks and there all alone at the top, the red and blue mountains rising out of Chihuahuan Desert all around and beneath me. I watched a golden eagle idle in the air nearby, swooping once and rising again.

And now I wonder what it all means. What does it mean to go on solitary walks in relative wilderness, to see the majesty of our planet, to not feel any of the abstract anxieties that one feels on a daily basis when sitting at a desk and trying to think of what his life means, what he values, and what he ought to be spending his time doing? What does it mean to “return to civilization” only to be bombarded by those anxieties once again? It’s an agitation resulting from bewilderment.

When Montaigne retired to the country-side at thirty-eight he never planned on writing essays, but he noticed that his mind fell repetitively into the most mundane of thoughts. He began writing just to shame his imagination into being more interesting. Samuel Johnson warned of the fallacy behind retiring into the countryside for much of the same reason, one becomes stupid and immoral. It is better to learn to apply one’s morality in the chaos among one’s fellow humans, learning how to assert one’s freedom within the confines of humanity than to simply exist in a state of rest and leisure in the middle of nowhere. Better to wrestle and overcome one’s anxieties than to be chased off into the wilderness by them.

To have a project, even just a general activity like writing and painting, even without an idea in the world where it will lead to, is better than nothing. It is a small plot of land to tend to when everything else is beyond one’s control. Plant the seeds, water them, provide them nutrition. Care, respond, show up everyday. Wait, observe, and tend.