I read a book this weekend – The Revenant – on loan from my buddy Brian. A page-turner, for sure, I was sucked into the frontier like a trapper stacking his plews.
I’ll share a few highlights from the text here, although, you should read the whole story. At 250 pages, it’s non-stop action and adventure the whole time, and totally worth it.
The next time you’re complaining your coffee’s cold, channel your inner Hugh Glass and suffer through it… 😉
If title meant little, experience was the coin of the realm. p. 16
I just wrote about experience here, and found this so fitting. There was certainly no manual for how to survive on the frontier, and the every day drive to take one more step, or in this case, drag your limp body down a river is astounding.
Need inspiration to keep going? Read Hugh Glass’s story of survival, and the late night emails or early morning commuting woes seem to fade away…
And, most people we meet have been attacked by a “grizzly” of some sort, and are fighting a fight we know nothing about. Scars run deep, and can be on the inside, too…
A mere 6 miles from his ferry the two great rivers joined as one, the wild waters of the frontier pouring into the bromide current of the every day. It was the confluence of old and new, known and unknown, civilization and wilderness. p. 55
def. bromide – typically intended to soothe or placate
I remember seeing the Little Colorado confluence, where it flows into the Colorado. We were rafting the Grand Canyon years ago (almost the frontier, buffered by tents, steak dinners on the river, and access to clean water). I made the connection last night.
Cloudy, murky, and way colder water entered the larger river and became one. The known and the unknown... Change. A new reality. You might face a confluence this week – are you ready?
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune…
There’s more to this quote by Shakespeare… but I think it talks about our need to pursue, to seek new, the drive that lives within to go, do… to find new adventures, riches, happiness.
And then a single mistake, a moment of exposure in an environment without tolerance, dead and devoured almost before its blood ceased to pump. p. 83. (about a rattle snake)
Most of us have the luxury of not working / existing in an environment without tolerance.
Life is very different now than in the early 1800’s frontier. You’re likely not traveling hundred’s of miles on foot, or in a canoe made of bark, eating jerky or gorging on fresh liver from a downed bison when available. Most of the time you’re not hungry, miserable, or fighting to stay alive…
Here’s you (and me!), at our desk, with access to information, maps, shelter, and tacos whenever we want it.
What are you gonna do about it?
Are you taking advantage of your platform, your sheltered space, your warm hearth? Or are you wasting time scrolling social media or yet another useless TikTok?
When was the last time you built something with your hands? Do you even know how to make a fire with flint and steel? 🔥
It’s time to connect with the past, perhaps? Slow down a bit, and start feeling the coarse wind on your face, the frost biting at your nose, and struggle just for a few minutes. Appreciate what you have.
That flint & steel thing? Don’t know how? I’ll teach you. Just reach out… Let’s conquer the frontier together.