The High Sierra

Were the painter, novelist, tourist, geologist, naturalist, or any other scientist, to search the world over for a point, easy of access, that combined most wonderfully in the domains of nature all elements of the sublime, immense, picturesque, curious, weird and varied in forms, colors and startling contrasts, and extent of mountains, valley and lake scenery, he or she would not be far wrong to locate it on one of the highest granite or lava peaks in the High Sierra Mountains of California. In fact we may seriously question, after a fair comparison, whether any part of the world outside this truly unique region, accessible or inaccessible, more fully and attractively unites all features above indicated, where the confines of civilization and the contrary barely touch each other.

Paraphrased from the writing of James A. W. Wright.  1879

Re-potting

“Repot yourself and you will bloom again,” said John Gardner in a talk at Stanford some years ago. Put a plant in fresh surroundings and it has more room to grow…to develop. It’s the same with people.

A person goes along for a period of time building a career or reputation or competence in a certain field. He or she learns the ropes, rules, and intricacies of the subject and how to use, leverage, or overcome them as required. Some level of success is achieved, perhaps modest, perhaps great. Regardless, at a point in time the action becomes routine. Boundaries are reached. Alliances are stable. There is predictability, maybe to the point of boredom. Learning falls off. It may be time to re-pot. Working doesn’t tire us; dullness does.

Gardner went on: “One of the reasons people stop learning it that they become less and less willing to risk failure.” They are afraid to tinker with the formula they have honed. Some people have a wide range of experiences over, say, 30 years of working life; many have two years experience fifteen times over. The curiosity of the repeaters shriveled in the process.

Repotting is proactively moving on from one phase of a career or life to a new one. It requires the confidence to say that there is more to life than endless re-runs—pursuing the same goals using the same ideas, style, talents, and toy collection. While repotting may appear complicated, it actually can be an act of simplifying. When repotted, a person returns to zero, re-starts. There are new possibilities and challenges and space. There is opportunity for self-renewal.

Here is a true story that nicely represents the process and “why” of repotting.

ACT I

In 1985, Maurice Lamm was the Rabbi at the Beth Jacob Congregation in Beverly Hills, CA. He had built a successful career and at age 55 and he was respected, loved, and fully engaged in his chosen work. He decided to leave the rabbinate. He wrote a newspaper article about the experience. His comments included:

“Life was not meant to be a one-act play. I’m convinced of that. I am astonished by how many well-meaning people cannot comprehend this. They don’t understand that my changing is not a denigration of Act I, but its fulfillment. And it is not burnout or cop-out. I want to do even more—but on a larger map, answering to different demands. And please don’t dismiss this as just a natural consequence of a midlife crisis. It is not an emotional fix that I am looking for. It’s simply the only reasonable way to go.”

ACT II

It takes courage to leave one’s comfort zone and move on to Act II. And it takes confidence that one possesses an inventory of talents—many unused, perhaps—that can be productively applied on a new frontier. Education and medical science are enabling us to live more years; it’s up to individuals to engineer the quality of those years. Lamm: “Act II can be an exhilarating change. Given the right circumstances and the right attitude, it can bring freshness to life, a new mountain to conquer, vigor, even youthfulness.”

Henry David Thoreau repotted himself, from town to Walden Pond, from teaching and making pencils to living in and observing nature. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

In his new container at Walden, he developed fresh ideas that have influenced generations. Consider some of his most quoted writings:

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”

“In wilderness is the preservation of the world.”

“That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.”

 “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.”

“Our life is frittered away by detail….Simplify. Simplify.”

And when Thoreau left Walden Pond to return to town, he was asked: Why are you leaving? His answer was: For the same reason I came.

Or as Maurice Lamm put it at the end of his article: “Who knows? There may be an Act III.”

Home Coming

My middle name is Carl. It came from an uncle, Captain Carl Todd, shown above. He was a salty guy who worked his way up to become a pilot on the Ohio River during the first half of the 1900s. As a pilot he was responsible for a taking large ships and barges up and down between Louisville and the Mississippi River. Carl made a fortune one way or another. Some in the family said he was a smuggler; others said he was just tight with his money and kept what he made; others thought he was just plain lucky. He was called “Lucky Carl” from time to time, but usually just “Captain,” or “Captain Carl.”

Some years before this story, Carl had purchased a large, bluegrass horse farm in Kentucky to be his home. Over the years he had assembled a collection of fine, premier racing horses. They were his pride and joy. One day late in December, after four weeks away on the river, he arrived back in Louisville. His ranch foreman, Henry, met him at the wharf.

“It’s a pleasure to see you Captain Carl,” said Henry, cap in hand.

“Always good to come home, Henry.” Captain Carl stretched and took a deep breath of Kentucky air as they walked to the car.

A few miles into the trip Carl asked from the back seat, “Any news, Henry?”

“No sir,” said Henry, “There ain’t no news at all. Been quiet.”

They drove on—it was a 15-mile trip on a winding, picturesque road. Midway Henry said, hesitantly: “Well-l-l, sir, there is one piece of news. And I’m afraid it’s sad.

“It’s about your dog, Blue...He died while you were gone.”

“Blue!” said Captain Carl, leaning forward. “Why when I left he was chasing rabbits and keeping the cat up in the apple tree!”

There was silence, except for the car. “How did he die?” asked the

Captain, at last.

“Well-l-l, sir, he died from eatin’ burnt horse flesh.”

“Horse flesh! How it the world did he get hold of that?”

 “Well-l-l, Captain, it was after the big barn burned down. You see, some of the horses were killed.”

“SOME of them?”

“Wel-l...most of them, sir… I’m afraid you lost all the Quarter Horses and all but two of the Thoroughbreds.”

Captain Carl was stunned. After a few moments, he said: “Tell me Henry, how did the fire start?”

“Well-l….it…was the sparks. Yes sir, the sparks. They they flew from the house.”

“THE HOUSE! What are you saying, Henry, the house burned?”

“Yes sir. That’s how it all began. Yes sir. The house caught fire, the sparks flew to the barn; the barn caught fire; and most of the horses were trapped. And Blue ate some of the burnt flesh.”

“But Henry, how did the damned house catch fire?” The Captain was now fully agitated.

“Well-l, Captain,” and he paused. “It was the candles. The flames catched onto the curtains in the living room.”

“CANDLES!? Henry, you know we’ve never allowed candles in the house. Why were they there…and lit?”

“Well-l-l, sir…they were ringed all around the coffin.”

“The coffin? My God, Henry, who died?”

“Well-l sir, it was your mother-in-law. It was a terrible thing.”

“But Henry, she had the constitution of a mule. What could have possibly killed her?”

“It was the shock, Captain, the shock.”

“The shock of what?”

“Wel-ll, sir—and he pasued for deep breath—it was the shock of your wife running away with the sheriff.”

Captain Carl sunk back into his seat, voiceless. The car rolled on.

“Outside that, Captain, and your dog Blue, there ain’t been no news.”

Proxie's Polyestermites

Summer was gone but the sun burned brightly as the pace around the marina slowed. The morning-coffee gatherings of the boatyard gang tended to stretch out toward noon even though rain or snow were not yet on the agenda.

On a Wednesday in mid September as the high-pressure system lingered over the bay, many boats appeared on the water and moved with the light breeze. They provided a booster shot in the lull between seasons. Everyone wandered out into the sunshine for look-see in the mid-afternoon. A graceful, cutter-rigged sloop came smoothly over from across the bay. She was a pretty sight even with her loose mainsail; she was alive and in keeping with the sparkling day with its whisper of autumn.

After one false start the skipper tacked, eased the sheets, and brought Proxie gently alongside the empty, outer dock of the boatyard. Uncle Ken, a regular, was parked in a faded, plastic-strap yard chair on the dock. He raised himself with his arms and ambled over to take a line from the skipper, a tall man with a shiny head and a giant mustache.

"I'll handle it myself," instructed the skipper sharply as he made ready to drop onto the dock from mid-ship. But he caught the toe of his back foot on the top lifeline as he high-stepped to clear it. With a thud his body made its acquaintance with the timbers, shoulder first; he dropped his white dock line in the process. Proxie, still moving, separated from the dock. With an effort, Uncle Ken bent over and grabbed the dropped line before it slithered into the clear water.

By this time other observers had arrived in force. Quietly, order was restored as Proxie was secured fore and aft. It was obvious to those gathered that the skipper had some of his parts wounded, in addition to his ego. Without a word to anyone, despite several offers of help, the tall man re-boarded his boat, limping, and he disappeared below. Eyebrows raised, shoulders upped, the group dispersed. Uncle Ken returned to his chair in the sunshine.

The Next Morning

Around nine the tall man came ashore and meandered through the boatyard toward the office where he could pay his bill for the night of moorage. He deliberately picked his way through a few sloops on braces, handsome powerboats on blocks, one derelict on 55-gallon barrels, and several boats on trailers ready to go somewhere for the winter. Two guys were busy with power sanders on the hull of one sailboat that was about Proxie's size. They were grinding away the fiberglass surface from stem to stern.

Tall man stopped to watch. Algae, old bottom paint, and white dust flew in all directions. As he edged closer, he could see the bottom looked like a teenager with acne. There was a random pattern of small craters and blisters. The sloop had a bad case.

Boat Acne

He ducked beneath the boat. Poking the ends of his index and middle fingers into two of the holes, he yelled, "What are these holes?" at one of the goggled guys holding a sander. The guy shook his head. "Can't hear you," he shouted over the sound of the sanders. "Ask Bill about it," and he gestured with his shoulder and elbow toward the nearby office.

"Those are blisters," Bill replied matter-of-factly after tall man stumbled across the threshold and through the open door. Bill had overheard the shouted question.

"What causes blisters?" tall man asked, with a frown on his face.

"Many fiberglass boats get them," Bill continued. Proxie's skipper squirmed a bit.

"Well, I'm sure I don't have to worry about blisters," tall man said unconvincingly. "Do they appear suddenly?" he rushed on.

Bill paused, looking down at the cluttered desk in front of him. He was undecided on what tack to take. "No, they take time to develop. You're probably okay. Just keep an eye on your hull."

"I just purchased Proxie this week. The boat broker told me it was in perfect condition, except for a few scratches here and there." The skipper shifted his weight from one foot to another as he unconsciously rubbed his shoulder.

"Did you get the boat surveyed before you bought it?" inquired Bill, innocently.

Tall man didn't answer. He didn't need to. "What causes the holes?" he pressed on with some trepidation.

"The blisters are caused by polyestermites," Bill drawled in an even tone. It had been a long summer. "You see," he continued, "polyestermites are little bugs that crawl up dock lines onto plastic boats, particularly those sitting endlessly in marinas. The mites seem to like party boats best; pieces of wine cork and cracker crumbs are their favorite foods. The mites sneak aboard, eat what they can find, and then they burrow into the hull from inside as they try to work their way back to the seawater. A few make it all the way through the hull and that causes chunks of fiberglass to pop out. Other mites get trapped in the fibers, die, and bloat, and that causes the blisters," Bill deadpanned.

Tall man looked grim. "How does one prevent them?"

"Well, you see," Bill twinkled and tightened his upper lip slightly, "you can do one of two things." He was warming to the task before him. "You can play a lot of classical music in the boat when it is in your slip, especially at night. The mites don't like classics for some reason, and it tends to keep them out of the boat.

“Or..." and Bill paused, "you can use black, braided dock lines. The mites lose their sense of direction in the dark braid, die of hunger, and fall into the water before they can get aboard. Smart skippers I know do both. They shift to black lines AND play Bach tunes when they aren't aboard."

Tall man looked suspicious, but he nodded, paid for his overnight stay, and returned to Proxie. There he dived into a catalog containing a wide selection of colored dock lines.

Copyright © by Steven C. Brandt 2012

Winter Solstice

It’s a fitting day to be the shortest of the year in terms of daylight hours. Wind is whipping around corners; raindrops are plucking on the window; the temperature has edged up a few degrees; and there all shades of gray paint the sky. A big storm is brewing.

In celestial terms, for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, our winter solstice is when the sun appears to reach the farthest south in its travels back and forth across our equator. The tilt of the earth on its axis—a line running between the North and South Poles—is the cause. Here’s how it works as our earth spins around once a day on its axis and plods along on its year-long orbit completely around the sun.

Today, December 21, the North Pole is tilted away from the sun; in six months, next June 21, it will be tilted toward the sun and we will have our longest day, our summer solstice. In between these dates, our hours of daylight increase a little each day. To me, this solstice signals a new beginning, a fresh start. A movement away from my 3-year nadir and upward toward a robust, productive zenith.

A friend gave me this quote the other day: “Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, but we need to turn on the lights.” Not bad…and quite apropos. I am looking for the switch.

The Plug in the Bottom of Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe, at 6,200’ in elevation, is near the crest of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range in Northern California. Mark Twain once remarked that when one is at Tahoe, he or she breathes the same air angels breathe. There are many stories connected with the giant lake, which was first seen by an American, John Fremont, in February 1844. One of the stories has to do with a plug in the bottom of the lake—1,645’ below the surface.

In 1858-9 the giant Comstock Lode of silver was discovered beneath Virginia City, Nevada, which is roughly 30 miles east of Tahoe in the high, Nevada desert. Over the next 20 years the mine yielded $500-600 billion (2007 dollars) in silver and gold. Fortunes were made and lost on both the mining and on the stock market in San Francisco that supported many of the mining ventures.

One day in early September 1869, a weary San Francisco stock speculator named Lester Williams was vacationing in Carnelian Bay on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe. He relaxed by going fishing. One day he was drifting quietly in his row boat about three miles out in the lake, southeast of Dollar Point. He noticed his boat going in a lazy circle. Williams watched and slowly recognized he was floating in a broad whirlpool. "If this is a whirlpool, there must be a hole down there, he thought." He casually picked up a loose board used as a forward seat and he scratched an "L" on it with his knife. Then he stood and gave it a toss into the center of the rotating whirlpool. The plank was gradually sucked down and it disappeared into the lake.

A bit later, as Williams rowed to shore, an idea hatched in his mind. He landed, secured the boat, grabbed his bags from the cabin, and returned to San Francisco, post haste. Once there he hurried to visit Tom Speed, an astute stockbroker with an office on Montgomery Street in the center of the financial district. Williams told Speed about his idea. Speed signed on immediately. For three days the pair tracked down and checked maps, survey reports, and Tahoe water-level readings. Their findings confirmed their concept: The level of Lake Tahoe had dropped over the summer just as the Comstock mines were filling with water.

Speed insisted on one more proof of what was happening. Williams took off for Virginia City. There, dressed as a rumpled miner, he was hired to work in the Comstock as a pump tender, deep in a mineshaft. The mines were having a great deal of trouble with the water seeping—often gushing—in. After a couple of days working far below the earth, Williams was delighted to see the wood plank with "L" on it floating in a large, underground pool near his assigned mine shaft. He quit his job and returned to San Francisco where he and Speed completed their plans to get richer quick.

A few weeks later, back at Carnelian Bay, Williams hired carpenters to build him a large, flat-bottom "fishing boat" that had a big well (opening) in the middle of it and a cabin over the well. Once the boat was completed, Speed arrived on the scene with two large crates. They were muscled aboard the boat at night by the partners. They also loaded a huge round of Douglas Fir. The next day at sunrise they rowed out to do some serious fishing.

The partners found the whirlpool once again, but it took them hours of trials to finally determine (approximately) the location of the hole on the bottom of the lake. They fixed the position of the hole from the boat by noting landmarks on the shore. They calculated that the hole was about two feet in diameter. In the crates aboard they had many feet of chain and a windlass, which they attached inside the boat alongside the well in the middle. From the round of fir, using hatchets, they fashioned a cone-shaped, wooden plug to which they attached their chain.

With great care they reeled out the chain via the windlass and allowed the plug to be pulled down into the lake in the center of the whirlpool. The swirling water guided the plug into the hole. The moment it was sucked into place, the whirlpool stopped. The hole was plugged!

But could the pair get the plug out again? They tugged and strained for an additional few hours. Finally, using the oars as levers, they were able to winch the plug up a foot at a time until they overcame the weight of the water at the floor of the lake. They practiced their plugging and unplugging maneuver with the windlass several times; then they headed for shore with the windlass and plug concealed in the boat's cabin. Once ashore, Speed headed back to San Francisco. He knew what to do.

Over the next two weeks, rumors about the Comstock mines seem to proliferate in San Francisco. The word was that the mines were filling with water rapidly (which was partially true) and that mining might have to stop altogether very soon because the pumps couldn't keep the mines dry. Of course the share prices of the mines started trending downwards, and suddenly they were free falling. As this was happening, a certain brokerage firm in the City was actually buying the depressed shares...all that were available. "Who would buy shares in mines full of water?" a few people wondered.

A few days after the mine stocks had been bought, the mines suddenly stopped filling, the pumps emptied the water, and silver & gold mining was re-started with a vengeance. As this happened, word spread and the share prices shot skyward. Speed and Williams sold their accumulated shares and made millions over the next week.

Then, several weeks later, the mines began flooding again; the cycle was repeated. Share prices fell; the shares were purchased. Water stopped filling the mines; share prices went up. Speed and Williams made more millions.

This went on until late in November when cold weather hampered Williams' boat trips to his whirlpool. There was snow on the mountain tops. Speed joined his partner on Thanksgiving Day 1869 for one last trip to the secret place. Greed! As they were lowering the plug, Speed's heavy, gold watch chain caught on the plug chain and he was pulled into the well and the lake. Williams slipped on the wet, boat bottom as he frantically grabbed at the thrashing Speed. Both men were pulled down into the icy water, ensnarled in the plug's chain.

The whirlpool sucked the wooden plug and the rich men down until the plug plopped into place in the hole, one more time.

The battered boat was found washed up on the East Shore of Tahoe after the second winter storm of the 1869-70 season. The windlass was there, but no plug, chain, or occupants.

The plug remains in place to this day, somewhere southeast of Dollar Point.

* * *

For readers with a technical or geographic bent, here are a few facts that relate to the story:

1. The elevation of Virginia City is 6,220’ above sea level.

2. Some of the mines under Virginia City were dug to depths as deep as an elevation of 3,220’. (i.e., The mines went down 3,000’ below the surface.)

3. Mining in the Comstock Lode eventually had to be halted because of the natural inflow of water into the lower portions of the mines.

4. The elevation of the surface of Lake Tahoe is 6,225’.

5. The lake is 1,640’ deep at its deepest point, which is about three miles southeast of Dollar Point.

6. The elevation of the bottom of Lake Tahoe is 4,585’; this is about 1,365’ higher than the bottom of the Comstock mines.

7. Water flows downhill.

* * *

Author's Note: Many thanks to the legacies of the deceased David J. Stollery, Jr. of the Tahoe City World and Washoe & Virginia City journalist, Sam Davis; they created original versions of this story. Many ideas in this story were in one of Dave's weekly pieces written and published between 1963 and 1969 as his "Tales of Tahoe."    Copyright © 2009 Steven C. Brandt

Carnelian Bay on Dwellable

Beware of Shortcuts

One hundred sixty six years ago the Donner Party was hunkered down in hip-deep snow on the east side of the Sierra Crest. In early December the 81 people still weakly fanned embers of hope that they could somehow crawl up and over the 1000-foot granite wall just ahead of them. It was the remaining obstacle between them and their destination, Sutter’s Fort in sunny, central California. They had traveled 2,000 miles from central Illinois to reach the promised land. Twenty six hundred other people had made the migration to Oregon and California that summer; only the Donners were missing out. They were the caboose on the wagon train of 1846.

How did this happen? There were a number of contributing factors. One of the main ones was a decision to try a shortcut between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada range. The decision turned out poorly.

The Donner Party, as it came to be known, had left Springfield, IL in April in nine wagons. A month later it joined up with 45 other wagons near Independence, MO. In total, some 500 wagons with over 2,500 people went west that year following the established Oregon Trail and its tributary, the California Trail.

From the start, the Donner group tended to lag a bit behind the pace of the main “train” as it rumbled disjointedly westward at 10 to 12 miles per day. The Donner group, on July 17, finally inched over 7,000-foot South Pass on the crest of the Rockies in (now) Wyoming. It was five to ten days after most of the other pioneers heading west that year. Everyone in every wagon up and down the train knew that they needed to get over the Oregon or California mountains ahead before winter. South Pass was a little more than half way to either. And most people in the wagon train had heard—one way or another along the way—about the Hastings Shortcut for those headed to California.

Lansford W. Hastings, age 27, had traveled to California a few years earlier and he wrote a promotional book about a better route. It was supposedly 300 miles (30 days) shorter, although he had not actually traveled the route in a wagon, if at all. The book had circulated in the east; in addition, Hastings had “follow me” flyers distributed by men on horseback to the wagons on the trail in 1846.

Two days after starting downhill from South Pass, the Donner Party reached a fork in the trail. To the right was Ft. Hall and the established route to Oregon and California. To the left was the shortcut. The Hastings route went south and rounded the bottom of the Great Salt Lake. The right-hand, northern route went northwest a ways and then bent to the southwest to pick up the Snake River heading west to Oregon or the lightly used trail down into Nevada towards California. The northern route rounded the Great Salt Lake on its north side.

The Donner Party assumed it would meet Hastings on the trail or at a trading post named Ft. Bridger. When it arrived at Bridger, it turned out Hastings had left there for the west a week earlier. The Donner group rested a week and then headed west on July 31, trying (unsuccessfully) to follow Hastings’ tracks. It had no way of knowing the rigors ahead.

In the weeks to come, the Donner Party of 22 wagons, traveling alone, encountered three huge obstacles: the dense, heavily-vegetated Wasatch Range of mountains that run south from Idaho well into Utah; the debilitating Great Salt Lake Desert where people and cattle boiled during the day and froze at night; and the Ruby Mountains in Nevada, which also run north to south presenting a series of hurdles to wagons trying to get west.

The Donner Party re-joined the California trail on September 27 (near today’s Elko, Nevada). It was three weeks behind the last wagons on the train to California, completely exhausted, fragmented internally, and short on provisions as well as leadership. The party’s problems were cumulative… and there was already snow on the tops of the mountains along the trail. It was no longer the wagon train’s caboose; only a struggling straggler.

The scattered party reached today’s Reno area (4,500’ in elevation) on October 20 and started its final push up the Truckee River canyon toward the Sierra Crest. Once again, it encountered tough going. The Donner group of 81 arrived near (today’s) Donner Lake (6,000’ in elevation) around November 1. The Sierra Crest (7,000’) was in sight just ahead, a thousand feet up; it beckoned from beneath ominous gray clouds rolling in from California. The next day it began snowing. The snow continued to fall regularly for eleven days—an untimely, early storm heralding the start of winter. The party was trapped. It could go neither east or west….nor south or north.

The rest is history.

Leadership 100

It is 35 miles across the Alenuihaha Channel between the northernmost end of the Big Island of Hawaii and the easternmost end of Maui. Wind blows 2,500 uninterrupted miles from California across the open Pacific into the channel. California is the closest land east of Hawaii. Usually the wind howls, shrieks, and builds large waves as it squeezes through the channel into the islands. The Alenuihaha seemed to me like a good place to learn something about ocean sailing.

Some years ago I answered a magazine, Classified Ad that read: “Learn To Sail with a Pro. Master skipper will take small crew of five through the Hawaiian Islands, from the Big Island in the south to Kauai in the north. Learn by doing! No experience required.”

I had had some experience—racing sailboats on San Francisco Bay, and I knew a bit about the ocean from eight years in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. But I had never sailed a boat out beneath the Golden Gate Bridge into the Pacific where the big boys play. I answered the ad with my check for $500.

The 37-foot sloop, our training boat, was moored in the harbor at Kailua Kona about mid-way down the west coast of the Big Island. The other four crew members were both younger and greener than me. Our captain was straight out of Hollywood Central Casting—a bearded, skinny guy with burnt skin, ragged shorts, and bare feet Hawaiian style. The first night I slept on the beach; it was too warm aboard. Six people on a 37-foot sloop (one mast) is cozy, at best.

The next day we did a gentle, warm-up sail south from Kailua Kona about twenty miles to the beach where Captain James Cook was killed in 1779 by Hawaiian natives in a confrontation over a relatively trivial matter. (Cook had discovered, explored, and mapped much of the Pacific Ocean in his three voyages there from England.) We returned to our mooring for the night.

The next day we headed north along the Big Island. The objective was a stop for the night in the small harbor at the Mauna Kea resort. The day after that we would head out across the Alenuihaha Channel for the town of Lahaina on Maui—the first leg of our sailing journey up the chain of Hawaiian Islands. Adventure was just ahead!

We left the Mauna Kea harbor next morning buoyed with anticipation. There was no wind so we motored north to Upolu Point on the tip of the Big Island. Maui was faintly visible in the far distance. The famed NE winds were expected any time as we crawled away from the Big Island and saw it recede behind us. On and on we put-putted on our boat’s small diesel engine. Minutes turned to hours and by noon it seemed we were a long way from the Big Island and hardly closer to Maui. There was plenty of sun….but no wind, which meant our sailboat had very little propulsion power.

Our captain seemed to show a little anxiety. By three in the afternoon the reason became known: He announced that, expecting wind, he had neglected to fill the fuel tank and that we had insufficient diesel fuel aboard to motor to Lahaina in the middle of Maui. So, he explained, we were going to head for the isolated hamlet of Hana on the very eastern tip of Maui. It was closer than Lahaina. We nodded; it wasn’t as if we had a vote in the matter. My intrepid adventurers and myself, instead of hanging on to a heeling sailboat for dear life in the face of high winds and seas, were about to melt in the breathless, mirror-like ocean in the middle of the Alenuihaha.

By six PM, we could see occasional headlights on cars a long way off on Maui, and we received a new revelation. Our captain informed us he did not have a chart (map) of the entrance to Hana, if there was such an entrance. (He had never been there.) Hana is not situated in a place that would be attractive to boats looking for a harbor. And—this went unsaid—we would not reach Hana until well after dark, assuming we could find the place in the dark. No one had much to say after that.

One of my fellow trainees rummaged around in the cabin and, by chance, found a U.S. Western States Coast Pilot in the bottom of a drawer. In it there was a tiny paragraph on Hana. The essence was: Hana had a short, fishing jetty extending into the ocean. There was a street light on it. And there was a very large, exposed rock just north of the jetty that also had a small—like 100 watt—light on it. “The two lights were not meant for navigation.” This information was gingerly passed along to our somber captain.

I can’t recall all the details any more, but we sighted the jetty around nine PM and lined up the boat to ride the reasonably flat, beach waves in alongside it, keeping the large rock and its lonely light to starboard. As we approached with trepidation, we saw that a few people had gathered on the jetty beneath the one light to watch the drama unfold…and probably to help in some way if they could.

Slowly, slowly we crept in; there would be no second chance. At last we heaved two lines up to people hanging over the rail. They quickly secured us to the jetty. Our crew of five levitated up and over the rail onto the solid planks. The audience applauded and cheered. Aloha! We had made it to Maui. Our captain remained aboard.

Ravished, we were able to buy a few sandwiches to eat in Hana. That night we all slept on the beach. I had brought my duffel bag onto the jetty with me. The next morning it was raining. I walked and hitch-hiked the 52 winding miles to Lahaina. I had learned something about ocean sailing.

Simplicity: Self Reliance

 “Trust thyself. Every heart vibrates to that iron string.” (Emerson.) A cornerstone of simplicity is self-reliance, and simplicity is the only practical antidote to the headaches of complexity.

A new study at UC San Diego reports the average intake per person in the USA in 2008 was “33.8 gigabytes of information and 100,000 words per day.” A gigabyte is a billion bytes. No wonder people feel bombarded, if not trampled, by the “confused jabbering of men.” (Thoreau’s phrase.)

The over-looked downside of complexity is that it leads to living second-hand lives. The incessant drumbeat of should-dos, should-bes, and just plain noise that rolls in from every direction 24/7 makes it difficult to know thyself. Nothing can be heard above the din. So, by default, we do as and what we are told and sold by others.

Emerson continues: “Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation. But of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession. What I must do is all that concerns me; not what people think.”

It is very easy to be a spectator of, rather than a participant in, life. It is possible today to side step reality, to avoid loving or hating or making difficult choices—taking some risks. All one has to do is dwell in the wannabe, fantasy world concocted by media and ad companies. Then “life” is via secondary sources. The technical name for this is living “vicariously,” an adverb defined as living one’s life through the feelings or actions of others, for example, through celebrities, reality shows, and mindless chatter, even from peers, that substitutes for thinking on one’s own.

The Grey Twilight

At the opposite end of the how-to-live spectrum is the gold standard set by President Theodore Roosevelt in a 1899 Chicago speech: “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

Feasting on external messages reflects a want of self-reliance, an “infirmity of will.” (Emerson) As the current UC San Diego study points out, the steady diet of bytes is many, many, many times the amount people’s ancestors could assimilate. Technology has outrun evolution, a human’s capacity to absorb.

Eric Sevareid, a major CBS news journalist from 1939 to 1977, forecasted what is happening today: “The bigger the information media, the less courage and freedom they allow. Bigness means weakness.”

So, just what is self-reliance? Autonomy? Rugged individualism? Independence? A useful colloquial definition is: standing on ones own two feet. Autonomy, yes. “Standing” with no props. Individualism, yes, rugged or smooth. Independence, yes. “Ones own two feet.” But self-reliance is more. It requires action. Consider Emerson:

“The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.” But... “The virtue in most request is conformity.” “There is really no insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.”

Simplicity is the antidote to complexity, and the cornerstone of simplicity is self-reliance.

Freedom & The Way Things Are

I was recently asked to ask myself this question: “Do I think there is any freedom for me in allowing things to be just as they are?”

I assume this means what if I tried to…

-Stop trying to fix intractable health problems in the family.

-Stop trying to change things the way they are and re-engage and be satisfied with what I have going on or within reach.

-Stop trying to smother or get around emotions that sneak up on me, emotions I have not experienced before, like loneliness.

-Stop thinking maybe I should retreat and try to re-live wonderful events in the past that are today just memories.

Overall, I interpret the question as: What if I just ‘cooled it’ and went with the flow, enjoyed, or at least accepted as O.K., the now, the present moment as it is coming to me. Meditation books and CDs advocate concentration on a single item: Breathing. Follow the breath. Why the breath? Certainly breathing is NOW. And it’s handy—always available (one hopes). If I can focus on my breath—innnn…..outttttt. Innnn….outtt for a spell— during that period I am not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow. So I am in the present moment. As I allow or accept things to be simply what/as they are, then I am not worrying about the next moment…and the next one….and….

My reaction to all this is that certainly I would have less on my mind, were I to take things as they are. But I am not sure I could handle the idleness, the void created by not worrying, wanting, wishing….and trying to fix/control things that are, as I have tended to do for a lot of years.

Of course, there might be some benefits. Were I to pry open some “freedom for me,” doing so might provide space for a modicum of creative activity, which right now is as low as it has ever been for me. I am not writing, starting a business, working on a photo project, learning anything new, "saving" any islands or lakes, or doing a project that is useful to others. I have idled down to near zero RPM.

Freedom might also lead to my putting less pressure on myself to fix things that I should recognize by now simply are not fixable or reversible or stoppable. I am, at best, a spectator to family health challenges, my own aging, to my friends’ aging and ailing, and even to the unfolding lives of my own children and grandchildren.

I am and have been pretty much a thinking machine, and I have no complaints or regrets. I have always planned ahead and worked to make desired things happen. I have tried to control, or at least influence, my destiny. And I have lived a fairytale life until recent times. Now, at best, I make feeble attempts to “affect the quality of each day,” per Henry David Thoreau. But now…..  Maybe more freedom (by recognizing and accepting what is reality NOW) could open some space for fresh experiences unfamiliar to me. Maybe.

                                             

The Wandering MInd

Once upon a time I learned to tie my shoes. Actually I learned to tie my shoelaces, but this is a mere technicality. I remember standing in front of a bedroom window with a foot on a chair and the evening sun streaming in. Slowly I crossed one lace over the other to form an X. Then, I suppose, I formed a loop with my left hand…and, in time, I got the laces tied. I was about five years old. It probably wasn’t too many weeks before I could tie my shoes without consciously thinking about the process; my mind then could wander off to nudge other subjects into consciousness. And it probably did.

Over the years I have developed an amateur thesis of how the mind works. There are many components to the mind, of course. One component is storage boxes for bits of information. (Please that I am a mechanical engineer by training.) Some boxes contain data at birth, and the same original pieces of data are linked to one another at birth by electro-chemical trails of some sort. This is to say, inelegantly, that we are hard-wired when we are born. We know how to make sounds, pee, digest, and so on. We didn’t learn to do this, as was the case for tying shoes, we just knew.

As time goes along, we pick up new pieces of data through our senses and store some of it in empty boxes located in various parts of the mind. Certain pieces are linked to others via the trails I mentioned. The pick up, storage, and linking is “learning.” If we use and reuse a particular trail, it becomes wider, like a footpath through the grass on a college campus. So, at later points in time, we have hard-wired trails plus some footpaths in the mind. Eventually, we have a zillion footpaths.

With more and more use, footpaths become hardened, even paved, suggesting there then exists an established connection—perhaps a whole network of connections—which we use to do things. We learn and then we behave and/or think, based on that learning. With enough use (repetition), a connection can graduate into a road or maybe even a freeway, which could be termed a habit, or perhaps a rut.

As connections become more solidified, we actually can use them essentially automatically, i.e., without consciously thinking about them. For example, most of us think about peripheral things as we drive down a relatively empty freeway. If something out of place occurs, in a flash we re-engage our mind in the driving, of course. But if everything is normal, basically our mind wanders. Now what does this mean?

Absent stimuli from our senses, it means—through some process I don’t understand—the lens of the mind rotates or roams amidst the web of trails, and it usually hones in at random on different subjects (e.g. thoughts) as if sampling what is available. Everyone’s mind wanders; at least teachers of mediation say this is so. And I believe it. [Note: Jung suggests there are also subterranean levels of the mind with arrays of paths, some hard-wired, and also a whole collection of characters dubbed archetypes. We may encounter these contents when they float “up” into consciousness while asleep, dreaming.]

Wandering can (will!) occur in a person who is concentrating on a well-developed path, even one hard-wired, like breathing. I am finding it very difficult to “stay with the breath;” my mind rushes off in one direction or another seeking fresh content from the inventory in the mind. The mind seeks on its own volition, and it makes me wonder just who is in charge here? My teachers say: Just note where the mind goes and then bring it back to the breathing. Keep working to make breathing the centerpiece of “awareness.” Breathing is handy. This process is apparently the challenge confronting those who opt to meditate.

Following is a quote from a book by Deikman titled, The Observing Self. The quote may or may not shed light on the subject of wandering.

“The distinction between awareness and the content of awareness tends to be ignored in Western psychology, its implications for our everyday life are not appreciated. Indeed, most people have trouble recognizing the difference between awareness and content, which are part of everyday life. Yet, careful observation shows people that they can suspend their thoughts, that they can experience silence or darkness and the temporary absence of images or memory patterns—that any element of mental life can disappear while awareness itself remains. Awareness is the ground (the lens?) of conscious life, the background or field in which all elements exist, different from thoughts, sensations, or images. One can experience the distinction simply by looking straight ahead. Be aware of what you experience, then close your eyes. Awareness remains. ‘Behind’ your thoughts and images is awareness, and that is where you are.

“What we know as our self is separate from our thoughts, memories, feelings, and any content of consciousness. No Western psychological theory concerns itself with this fundamental fact; all describe the self in terms of everything but the observer, who is the center of all experience. This crucial omission stems from the fact that the observing self is an anomaly—not an object (like a lens!) like everything else. Our theories are based on objects; we think in terms of objects, talk in terms of objects……  Images, memories, and thoughts are objects we grasp, manipulate, and encompass by awareness just as we do the components of the physical world. In contrast, we cannot observe the observing self; we must experience it directly. It has no defining qualities, no boundaries, no dimensions…..

“Lacking understanding of this elusive, central self, how are we to answer the essential questions ‘Who am I?’  ‘What am I?’

“Both Yogic and Buddhist metaphysics and psychology emphasize the crucial difference between the observer and the content of consciousness and use meditation techniques to heighten the observing self. As with meaning, mystics hold that answering ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Why am I?’ requires a special mode of perception.”

                                             * * *

So, what does all this have to do with wandering mind?

To the extent that meditating corrals a wandering mind and gathers it beneath the umbrella of “awareness,” it collects the material world in one place so possibly there is a wholeness experienced. Possibly.

The Other Side of the Coin

Lewis & Clark accomplished their mission and returned home to the east coast as heroes. It was a wonderful achievement involving a lot of nitty gritty hard work, good judgment, tenacity, and....   What was it? Luck? Pluck? Divine Intervention? A flip of the coin? Some other explorers have not fared so well.

Ferdinand Magellan, the first captain to circumnavigate the world (1521), ended up dead on a beach in the Western Pacific, after he offended the natives there. The same thing happened to Captain James Cook, probably the most famous sea explorer of all time. During his third voyage around the Pacific he died on the west coast of the Big Island in Hawaii. He, too, was involved in a beach fracas with the natives.

In 1845 Sir John Franklin (already a certified hero) was sent by the English Admiralty with a ship and over 200 men to "finally" find—after 300 years of on and off attempts—the Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans across the top of Canada. Franklin and his ship entered the maze of seaways, islands, and ice above Canada and was never seen or heard from again.  Over ten years he was the subject of the biggest manhunt in history. (Side note: Franklin disappeared about the same time the Donner Party was trapped in snow at the top of the Sierra in 1846-7. Have of the party died.)

Englishman, Robert Falcon Scott, raced Norwegian Roald Amundsen to be the first man to reach the South Pole. Amundsen won (December 1911) and returned home a hero, like Lewis and Clark. Scott came in second to the Pole (in January 1912) and he and his entire party of five died on their return march across the polar plateau toward their ship anchored on the edge of Antarctica.

It's more than a little difficult to distill a lesson or two from these slices of history. The only thing for certain is that coins seldom, if ever, land on their edges.