Vox Clamantis In Deserto

* There are some good things to be said about walking.
Not many, but some. Walking takes longer, for example,
than any other known form of locomotion except crawling.
Thus it stretches time and prolongs life.
Life is already too short to waste on speed.
I have a friend who's always in a hurry;
he never gets anywhere. Walking makes the world
much bigger and thus more interesting.
You have time to observe the details.
The utopian technologists foresee
a future for us in which distance is annihilated
and anyone can transport himself anywhere, instantly.
Big deal, Buckminster. To be everywhere at once
is to be nowhere forever, if you ask me.

* I once sat on the rim of a mesa above the Rio Grande
for three days and nights, trying to have a vision.
I got hungry and saw God in the form of a beef pie.

* One wishes to go on.
On this great river
one could glide forever
— and here we discover
the definition of bliss,
salvation, Heaven,
all the old
Mediterranean dreams:
a journey from
wonder to wonder,
drifting through eternity
into ever-deeper,
always changing grandeur,
through beauty continually
surpassing itself:
the ultimate Homeric voyage.

--* Edward Abbey

Natalie Merchant: The Man in the Wilderness...2/20/16