Note: Thanks to everyone who sent me messages and cards over the last few months telling me that the book helped them through hard times or asking me to continue writing this blog. It means a lot to me and gives me a reason to keep writing.
The night sky was dark. The moon and stars covered by clouds. The black shadows of the thick forest in front of me were even darker. I couldn't use the flashlight attached to my hip. The course rules allowed it to only be used for checking the map or "charging up" the glow-in-the dark direction markers on the compass.
The clock was ticking. Success in night land navigation doesn't only depend on finding the assigned points. You've got to find them under the allotted time.
I took a step with my left boot, one with my right, and another with my left. "Fifty two, fifty three.." I counted each left step in order to get my pace count. Sixty four left steps was approximately a hundred meters. After each hundred meters, I slid a bead from the top to the bottom of my string of "Ranger beads." Three beads lowered on the string meant three hundred meters. Eight beads meant eight hundred meters. The only way to gauge the distance walked over dark terrain..
"Fifty four, fifty five.." Branches against my face, pushing on my fogging classes. I stepped around a bush, then glanced down at the compass. I was a little off. I rotated my body until the magnetic needle matched up to the bezel's luminous line marking 23 degrees, and then continued forward.
"Fifty six, fifty seven.." My left foot didn't find the ground. I fell down and into the darkness. No way to stop the fall. Not knowing if the fall would be six inches or six feet. My stomach pulled up into my throat. Air rushed by my face.
I landed on gravel. Feet dropping awkwardly; the rest of my body spread out forward. My left knee and elbow stung from the fall. My hands braced against small pebbles. My mind struggled to find comprehend what the change in topography meant.
Was this the dry creek bed? I wasn't expecting to hit it for another eighty meters.Was my pace count off or my azimuth? Or was this a smaller tributary, something that didn't show up on the map?
I pulled the map out from my cargo pocket. The red lens flashlight glowed over the clear plastic that encased the map. I was looking for a grid coordinate that was about ten meters from the dry creek bed. This dry ditch looked like the dry creek bed on the map, but if my direction was off then... I stopped my mind from running down the list of negative possibilities. Assume this is right and work from there.
I couldn't see the glowing destination point from my location. I set an western azimuth along the dry creek bed and then moved forward fifteen steps. Scanning the darkness to my left. Shadows danced in and out of my view, but no light. The destination point would be marked by a partially unwrapped green glow stick. I strained my eyes out into the darkness. Still nothing.
I looked down at my compass and set a reverse azimuth one hundred eighty degrees from where I'd come. I took fifteen steps back to where I'd come. I tried to calm myself. Slow down. Don't lengthen the steps beyond what I'd taken to get here.
Then fifteen more steps in the other direction of the dry creek bed. The section I hadn't traveled yet. My eyes fought through the darkness trying to find the light. My pulse quickened. I had to be close. The map said it would be about ten meters from the creek bed.
"What if the glowstick fell off the destination point?" The thought was so tangible in my head that it could have been whispered.
Focus on the task. Darkness, compass, map - all I needed to find where I was going. No room for doubt.
"What if the glowstick fell off the destination point? It was probably attached with a little parachute cord and tape. Wouldn't take much to slip loose."
My eyes scanned the night in front of me. Darkness and shadows. I looked to my right. Darkness and shadows. I looked to my left. Still nothing.
"If the glowstick's still in it's wrapper and fell on the ground, then you'll never be able to see it. You're wasting your time. Go onto the next point."
In all of the night land navigation courses I'd been on, I'd never had the glowstick fall of the point I was looking for, but the thought haunted me all the same. There was more than one time that I'd given up on finding a point, but I always found out later that other people that had found it. The destination was always there and I had the basic physicals tools I needed to find it - the mental part was a whole other ballgame.
Nothing is more toxic than losing faith in your goal, in your purpose. Dr. Viktor Frankl delves deep into this truth in his book, Man's Search for Meaning. The book describes Dr. Frankl's struggle for survival during his three years in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. In the harshest of circumstances, Dr. Frankl learned critical lessons about the necessity of purpose to human existence.
The prisoner who lost faith in the future - his future - was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay.
Dr. Frankl's lesson extends beyond the boundaries of the concentration camp into everyday reality. Each of us has to face down the question of our meaning. Why are we hear? The broadest form of this question is a tenet of faith and it is hard to retain a firm grasp on amid the life's difficult, changing circumstances.
We must focus on the meaning of each moment, each situation. What am I challenged by life to do now? Father Robert E. Kennedy describes this dynamic in Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit. "[W]e do not know God's will. We do know that we are to serve, forgive, and be compassionate to one another, but how practically we are to do these things is only revealed to us moment by moment as the circumstances of our lives evolve."
Dr. Frankl provides specific guidance in how to find the meaning in each moment, each situation:
[T]here are three main avenues on which one arrives at meaning in life. The first is by creating a work or doing a deed. The second is by experiencing something or encountering someone; in other words meaning can be found not only in work but in love.... Most important, however, is the third avenue to meaning in life: even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and may by doing so change himself. He may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph.
The purpose is there. It may not be in the place we expect or even in the direction that we're looking, but it's there. It's just a matter of opening our eyes to reality and the tools we have to confront it.
Note: Dr. Frankl had another quote that I couldn't figure out how to work in, but I thought it was too important to leave out. "Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!"
The night sky was dark. The moon and stars covered by clouds. The black shadows of the thick forest in front of me were even darker. I couldn't use the flashlight attached to my hip. The course rules allowed it to only be used for checking the map or "charging up" the glow-in-the dark direction markers on the compass.
The clock was ticking. Success in night land navigation doesn't only depend on finding the assigned points. You've got to find them under the allotted time.
I took a step with my left boot, one with my right, and another with my left. "Fifty two, fifty three.." I counted each left step in order to get my pace count. Sixty four left steps was approximately a hundred meters. After each hundred meters, I slid a bead from the top to the bottom of my string of "Ranger beads." Three beads lowered on the string meant three hundred meters. Eight beads meant eight hundred meters. The only way to gauge the distance walked over dark terrain..
"Fifty four, fifty five.." Branches against my face, pushing on my fogging classes. I stepped around a bush, then glanced down at the compass. I was a little off. I rotated my body until the magnetic needle matched up to the bezel's luminous line marking 23 degrees, and then continued forward.
"Fifty six, fifty seven.." My left foot didn't find the ground. I fell down and into the darkness. No way to stop the fall. Not knowing if the fall would be six inches or six feet. My stomach pulled up into my throat. Air rushed by my face.
I landed on gravel. Feet dropping awkwardly; the rest of my body spread out forward. My left knee and elbow stung from the fall. My hands braced against small pebbles. My mind struggled to find comprehend what the change in topography meant.
Was this the dry creek bed? I wasn't expecting to hit it for another eighty meters.Was my pace count off or my azimuth? Or was this a smaller tributary, something that didn't show up on the map?
I pulled the map out from my cargo pocket. The red lens flashlight glowed over the clear plastic that encased the map. I was looking for a grid coordinate that was about ten meters from the dry creek bed. This dry ditch looked like the dry creek bed on the map, but if my direction was off then... I stopped my mind from running down the list of negative possibilities. Assume this is right and work from there.
I couldn't see the glowing destination point from my location. I set an western azimuth along the dry creek bed and then moved forward fifteen steps. Scanning the darkness to my left. Shadows danced in and out of my view, but no light. The destination point would be marked by a partially unwrapped green glow stick. I strained my eyes out into the darkness. Still nothing.
I looked down at my compass and set a reverse azimuth one hundred eighty degrees from where I'd come. I took fifteen steps back to where I'd come. I tried to calm myself. Slow down. Don't lengthen the steps beyond what I'd taken to get here.
Then fifteen more steps in the other direction of the dry creek bed. The section I hadn't traveled yet. My eyes fought through the darkness trying to find the light. My pulse quickened. I had to be close. The map said it would be about ten meters from the creek bed.
"What if the glowstick fell off the destination point?" The thought was so tangible in my head that it could have been whispered.
Focus on the task. Darkness, compass, map - all I needed to find where I was going. No room for doubt.
"What if the glowstick fell off the destination point? It was probably attached with a little parachute cord and tape. Wouldn't take much to slip loose."
My eyes scanned the night in front of me. Darkness and shadows. I looked to my right. Darkness and shadows. I looked to my left. Still nothing.
"If the glowstick's still in it's wrapper and fell on the ground, then you'll never be able to see it. You're wasting your time. Go onto the next point."
In all of the night land navigation courses I'd been on, I'd never had the glowstick fall of the point I was looking for, but the thought haunted me all the same. There was more than one time that I'd given up on finding a point, but I always found out later that other people that had found it. The destination was always there and I had the basic physicals tools I needed to find it - the mental part was a whole other ballgame.
Nothing is more toxic than losing faith in your goal, in your purpose. Dr. Viktor Frankl delves deep into this truth in his book, Man's Search for Meaning. The book describes Dr. Frankl's struggle for survival during his three years in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. In the harshest of circumstances, Dr. Frankl learned critical lessons about the necessity of purpose to human existence.
The prisoner who lost faith in the future - his future - was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay.
Dr. Frankl's lesson extends beyond the boundaries of the concentration camp into everyday reality. Each of us has to face down the question of our meaning. Why are we hear? The broadest form of this question is a tenet of faith and it is hard to retain a firm grasp on amid the life's difficult, changing circumstances.
We must focus on the meaning of each moment, each situation. What am I challenged by life to do now? Father Robert E. Kennedy describes this dynamic in Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit. "[W]e do not know God's will. We do know that we are to serve, forgive, and be compassionate to one another, but how practically we are to do these things is only revealed to us moment by moment as the circumstances of our lives evolve."
[T]here are three main avenues on which one arrives at meaning in life. The first is by creating a work or doing a deed. The second is by experiencing something or encountering someone; in other words meaning can be found not only in work but in love.... Most important, however, is the third avenue to meaning in life: even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and may by doing so change himself. He may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph.
The purpose is there. It may not be in the place we expect or even in the direction that we're looking, but it's there. It's just a matter of opening our eyes to reality and the tools we have to confront it.
Note: Dr. Frankl had another quote that I couldn't figure out how to work in, but I thought it was too important to leave out. "Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!"
