Take a hike

Take a hike.

Slip your moorings from that dock of doom, from that scrolling rectangle of hand-held gloom, from powerful hatred found in uninformed rooms.

Take a hike!

New world, new land, new you.

This harbor, they say, is not safe for your kind where your kind is a mind made easily blind—with fury, with sadness, with fear ill-defined.

(I’m not all that sure I can keep up with this rhyme.)

Exhaustion Harbor.
Thar be Dragons.

Step away, weary traveler, from the holes and the trolls and the suck of the soul and step to the deck—the first step on your trek—and set sail to the peace that you seek.

If lasting only momentarily.

(Just like these rhymes.)

No more ones and zeros and keyboard heroes and burn to the ground wannabe Neros.

These Furious Wastelands.
Thar be Bandwagons.

So, go!

Set sail to new trails for your spiritual loot reboot.

Dream of streams not found on servers.

Take a hike.

Real world and metaphorical. No…. Not metaphorical. Let’s leave Meta out of this. Not metaphorically—euphorically.

Joy City.
Thar be Humanity.

Boots and blisters, GORP and grit. This is a foldable map to disconnected bliss. There’s a start and an end and a coming back with new lightness to deal with the heaviness, but first, you must disconnect.

You must find your hike.

Do it. Sail away, land ahoy, beach yourself and go. Toes in the sand, bugs on the skin, hoots and hollers and bird calls abound. No more tangled internets. No more fish-rot brains and the odors of foul opinion to stank the scene.

Log off, step on, reground in the sound of the world.

Step outside the rectangle.

Step outside.

Now, deep breath. Remember this? This is called nature. Look, a tree! Squirrel! Fern. Scat. Come closer. Look out. Vista. Feel. Look. Be.

Hiking is fundamental. For your mental fund. It is a human endeavor.

This—the desire to walk the perimeter of your life, to see the edge and step a foot outside, to carry the essentials and show that you can live—is the glory of this animal. To find escape. To feel dirt. To survive on wit and on instinct alone. Or together.

A body used for what a body is used for—what joy!

Take a hike.

In the mountains, in your neighborhood. Release yourself from the rectangle and to the real.

Stride boldly and with purpose through the shrubs and poodle dog bush and poison oak. Over obstacles and around rock piles. Pick up pinecones and admire the giant audacity of their life’s mission. Bash through the scrub like a bowling ball of pulsing energy. Scramble and stumble and stride and stride and stride.

Forward. Lose the rhyme as you find your time.

This. This is actual freedom.

“But I live in the city?” you say, your hand tethered to the shape. “My bills come at me as effortlessly as that stream of outrage about my latest poorly composed photograph. I exist in a concrete jungle of interconnected wires and barely connected souls. I cannot escape to hug a tree. Am I doomed to be a prisoner of my own geography?”

Art Land.
Thar be Imaginations.
Thar be Escape.

Hike a book. Hike a film. Hike a painting at a museum. On lands such as these the hikes are short and long and day and thru. Go solo, go in groups. Just go.

There’s a whole world to hike, found in the imaginations of others. One possible antidote to the madness of this upside-down world. Simplistic, sure, but true.

Take a hike.

Disconnect from that anxiety and unplug from that clickable heart found in the love-me—or this perception of me—love socket.

I ask you: When the digital thumbs of approval don’t talk are we capable of loving ourselves? How deeply?

I tell you: Thumbs are for hitching a ride for that resupply of your soul. Off trail, on trail, all trail, for all time.

Take a hike.

Silence the self selfies and find yourself, out there.

The basics of your survival are very basic: Eat. Sleep. Maintain and Treat.

Eat. Eat when you are hungry. Eat when you are sad. Eat when your energy is low, and your heart is empty. What should you eat? Eat anything that feeds your soul.

Eat the love of your friends and feed them love in return. Eat the wisest of words founds on the plates of your elders.

Chow down on the beauty of nature, the wild skies, the calm seas, the green woods. Devour the experiences found outside of machines that do not know you or your dreams. Avoid the poisons and additives that clog the arteries of sense.

Do not consume the empty calories found in screen feeds—only the sustenance of life found in love.

Sleep. Sleep when you are tired and cannot take another step. Give your mind and body time to recover and rebuild and repair themselves, away from the pull of the rectangle.

Sleep is essential to survive the biggest hike of all—your life. You don’t know how long this hike will be, so sleep. For without sleep we cannot dream, and we must feel free to dream. Dare. Dream of a better life. Of a future not dictated by outside forces. Of a possible that you can possibly make. We reincarnate every day in the wake of our sleep.

Even the rectangle sleeps.

Maintain and Treat. Maintain your spirit. Treat your wounds. Tend to the blisters of your being. Treat the mischiefs of the body and maladies of the mind. Bandages and medicines and massages and more. Stretch before battle. Cool down after war. Take a zero day and more time away.

Then keep walking.

Find your peace and your pace.

Take a hike.

This disconnect may feel selfish and irresponsible and at times, impossible.

“We can’t turn away. We can’t disconnect. That’s how the world ends.”

True. You can’t step away forever. There can be no escape from the news and connection to the rectangle. It is the (current) shape of us.

But we can hike. We can step off the rage rectangle and onto the trail. We can take a hike and remember who we are. We can find our trail magic and our trail angels and markers and shelters and creatures. We can respawn outside the algorithm to reset our attention, our purpose, and our sanity.

Stop drinking the clout juice. Stop eating the poison pills. Step away from the vehicle of our crash scene.

Take a hike.

Me?

I am hiking upon and across the sea.

I am hiking in the sky.

I am hiking at a gallery.

I am hiking in my skin.

I am hiking the world, surrounded by signals and noise.

I am connected by wires, but at peace with the rectangle.

Hiking.

For this moment.

One this day.

Hello.

I am free. I am me. My trail name is…? TBD.

*1

The Stream is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This week’s amends…

“There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.”

- Mister Rogers

Via John Suder’s Awesome Things

On Rotation: “I’m Stranded” by The Saints

A reminder that all songs featured in this newsletter over the years are added to the giant mega super playlist of magnificents and magnificence which you can access with an effortless depress of this button. 👇

“This is not an optional lifestyle. This is all I got.”

I love a niche hobby.

Via Boing Boing

So… synchronized swimming in an air pool? Seems way easier, and the costumes less wedgie-inducing.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyra Poh (@kyrapoh)

Via my feed.

Shameless Podcast Plug

Listen to audio versions of early issues of The Stream on my podcast, Field of Streams, available on 👉 all major podcasting platforms 👈

Here’s Apple