The Doctrine of the "Horrendous" Portage: An Homage to My Fellow Trippers

 

The Doctrine of the "Horrendous" Portage: An Homage to My Fellow Trippers

"Folks... I have been thinking about how fortunate we were to have those moments on canoe expedition. We know how beneficial they were to us and the kids we worked with...overcoming challenges, working together, and learning what we’re truly capable of.

But as I spend a lifetime rethinking this, I’ve realized that access to what troubles so many people is the capacity to find harmony in the act of living itself. How often, after every trip, did you wish you were back on the lake, at the campfire, or even on those dreaded, buggy portages? Cold, wet, tired, hungry... with one thing in mind: getting past the struggle and completing the goal. But when it was over, all we wanted was to return.

It has an effect. One that goes deep.

I’ve realized that the 'lack' we felt on those trips - the hunger, the cold, the exhaustion - was not a hole to be filled; it was the very fuel for our vitality. We live in a world obsessed with reaching a 'final destination' or an ultimate contentment where we never have to struggle again. But our time on the water taught us the great paradox: Contentment isn't the absence of desire; it is the rhythm of the striving itself. The 'post-trip' depression we all felt wasn't because we were tired; it was because we had reached the finish line and found it static. We realized, perhaps unconsciously, that the 'horrendous' portage was where we were most alive, where the gap between who we are and what we are doing finally closed. The secret isn't found at the end of the road; it’s found in the 'flow' of the effort and the shared suffering that proves we are vital. We weren't just traveling through the wilderness; we were practicing the art of being whole in the midst of the incomplete.

I love you guys for being the ones I shared the 'horrendous' with. It’s the reason I can find the beauty in the struggle today. In a way, we continue to keep that post-trip depression alive - in a good way - through this chat, in getting together, and in reminiscing. It keeps us connected to that wholeness.