{"id":26919,"date":"2024-01-19T09:49:06","date_gmt":"2024-01-19T14:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=26919"},"modified":"2024-01-19T09:49:14","modified_gmt":"2024-01-19T14:49:14","slug":"the-superior-usefulness-of-the-impractical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2024\/01\/the-superior-usefulness-of-the-impractical\/","title":{"rendered":"The Superior Usefulness of the Impractical"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

[Image: “Tangible Reasons,” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page<\/a> at <\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em>RAMH.)<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em>]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From whiskey river<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am — a reluctant enthusiast… a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to your body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Edward Abbey [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(George Mallory [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“I’m leaving for the Himalayas in April. By way of Darjeeling. Then, to a monastery right at the foot of the mountain. Rongbuk. We’ll stay there. The monks believe that the mountain — Everest — sings. That the music is too high-pitched for us to hear, but certain of the Buddhist masters can hear it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“That’s a bit too mystical for me.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Is it? When you\u2019re here at [Swiss mountain resort] Mu?rren, don’t you feel light-headed?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I nodded. “Well, yes, I do, but that’s because of the thinness of the air. It’s physiological. It’s—“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandy interrupted me. “People feel light-headed on mountains because the solid world dematerialises. We are not the dimensional objects we believe ourselves to be.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n[…]\n\n\n\n

“When I am climbing [Sandy added], I understand that gravity exists to protect us from our own lightness of being, just in the same way that time is what shields us from eternity.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Jeanette Winterson [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Route 684, Southbound Rest Stop<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you see why it could not have been a more humble moment.
If there was any outward sign of regalia
It might have been the twilight crowning of the day, just then,
A perfect moment of dusk, but changing, as a wave does
Even as you admire it. Because the southbound stop
Mirrors the one northbound where we so often find ourselves
At the beginning, southbound’s return holds the memory
Of northbound’s setting-out, and the grassy median between
With its undisturbed trees defines an elusive strip of the present
Where no one lives. After twenty-eight years of the trip,
It\u2019s like two beakers of colored water?—?one green, one blue?—?
Have poured themselves back and forth, because
On one side we are tinted by remembering the other.
But this aspect of the journey, at least, we know we will repeat.
As dusk cohered that moment?—?aquas, pinks, violets?—?
Just at that moment as I was returning to the car
A woman came the other way, her two young daughters
Holding her hands, and the gloaming sparkled around them
So that I froze, as they were backlit, starry,
They were the southbound reminder of who I had been beginning
The trip. She didn’t look like me, but what I did recognize
Was her clarity of purpose, in what Sharon Olds called
the days of great usefulness<\/em>, making life as nice
As she could for them, always writing the best story,
And also, beneath her skin, living with delight as quiet
As the shoots anchoring grass beneath the earth.
I walked back to my car. My husband sat in the driver’s seat,
Our weekend’s luggage thrown in back.
Tell me we really had those girls<\/em>, I said,
and that they held my hands like that<\/em>. When I got home
I pictured her helping them each into bed?—?I knew it was
Later than she had hoped?—?then reading
Each section of the paper\u2019s terrible news, finally alone.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Jessica Greenbaum [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “Tangible Reasons,” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)] From whiskey river: One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am — a reluctant enthusiast… a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Edward Abbey, George Mallory, Jeanette Winterson, Jessica Greenbaum: 'The Superior Usefulness of the Impractical'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,247,1393,4701,250,4878,251,4159],"tags":[1496,2512,4101,4683,5844,5845,5846],"class_list":{"0":"post-26919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-everyday-life","8":"category-ruminations","9":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","10":"category-my-photography","11":"category-art","12":"category-fiction","13":"category-poetry-writing_cat","14":"category-essays","15":"tag-jeanette-winterson","16":"tag-edward-abbey","17":"tag-jessica-greenbaum","18":"tag-living-life","19":"tag-george-mallory","20":"tag-what-to-focus-on","21":"tag-what-to-discount","22":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/usefulnessisnotpracticality_johnesimpson_med.jpg?fit=1024%2C769&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-70b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26919"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26927,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26919\/revisions\/26927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}