Notes on Wilderness
Wilderness is where the known breaks down. Where one becomes lost. Where the pavement, dirt roads and even, the most rudimentary of trails come to an peter out. It is where the known fragments, whether the known be geo-physical or psycho-graphic. When we enter the wilderness we leave the what is safe.
The wilderness is physical it is that place where our feet tread on new surfaces, our eyes see new sites, where our hearts race with exhilaration and anticipation and fear, where we fear for our safe return to civilization.
The wilderness in intellectual is that place where we our reality is in jeopardy. Where what we know, what we trust, and what we believe become subject to new truths.
Wilderness is a continuum. For some people wilderness may be a short walk on a nature trail, for others it a hundred mile trek into lands uncharted. For some it may be reading about a new religion, for others creating one.
Wilderness is a condition a state of being. It is the antithesis to civilization, but only the antithesis because civilization dictates that which is not part of it, is it’s opposite. Wilderness is the antithesis of civilization but civilization is not the antithesis of wilderness. Wilderness encompasses civilization, it gives birth to it.
Wilderness is important not for it’s thrill or it’s aesthetic value but above all to our very survival.
The only place something new ever occurs is in the wilderness. Everything else is derivative. Not in ones personal life, not in society, not in nature is anything ever created except under the conditions of wilderness.