It's a trail - but it's so much more...

It's a damn path of dirt and rocks. It goes up and then down again. It travels through the misty forests and then on top of tree-less 'balds.' It gets rained on, baked by the sun and is strewn with rocks and roots of all shapes and sizes. It is lifeless, and yet it is alive. And it sits there day after day getting walked upon by creatures of all kinds only changing as those who tread upon it change it. But despite how seemingly lifeless this path is...it changes people.

It can take young child and fill him with wonderment and inspire him to spend his life playing in the wilderness. It can take a woman who has lived a suppressed life and show her the way to a life full of courage and self-respect. It can take an old man hardened by a difficult life and help him find sanity in a world that seems anything but sane. And it can take a "40-ish" computer geek and turn his life upside down. And that's only after 9 weeks.

The "Trail" is a mirror and one's experiences, for better or worse, reflect the individual's state of mind. One who sees the trail as an endless trail of mystery and wonderment is one who has learned to embrace this philosophy in his life. One who sees the trail as an endless string of challenges and disappointments probably perceives his world the same way. And one who walks the trail and learns nothing, probably had little ambition in the first place.

But those who gain most from the trail, in my limited perspective thus far, are the ones who dare to change their life's perspectives and become different in some way, to become better or to choose a better life for themselves. Indeed this is what I'm trying to do for myself and I must tell you it scares the hell out of me. But somehow, I find the courage to plod on knowing, or at least believing at this point, that this change, this epiphony lies somewhere up the trail.

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry that part of me is scared to death that I might struggle and fight every step of the way only to find that there is no epiphony to be found, no great lesson to be learned and so my trip will have been for naught. But another part of me has faith that this epiphony is lying in wait, somewhere inside me waiting for that flowered hillside, or mountain-filled vista or the right animal to come out.

I really hope that's the case.

The trail is a path of dirt and rocks and roots. But alas, it is so much more.