Tuesday, November 16, 2010

 
LIVING HIGH

The few folks who live up here on the mountainside necessarily get more exercise than do the flatlanders, not only because they live up high in rarefied air and so get more naturally strenuous exercise, often as not preferring to walk up to their homes from the roads and rails below, but also because they walk a lot in general around the path ways in their various wonderfilled amblings, since they are by dint of their personal natures assertively outdoor folk, who hike, climb, garden etc. in a large way and in winter get a lot of extra snow to shovel. They are folks who enjoy productive physical labor, full-living folks who chose to live where it would be more physically challenging and naturally rewarding to live.

There are further compensations however, if such metrosweeteners be needed for living hereabouts. To a name just a few (as one does with the stars in heaven, rather than use up a lifetime being specific), each season you get an honorary PhD equivalent in biology, hydrology, geology and meteorology, and in addition to lotsofology there are all the splendificent views of year-round diversity involving big samplings of pretty much everything there is, from planets and stars to creatures, water, clouds, earth, plant and spirit, the welcome summer air upflows and downflows of  morning and evening, the crossmountain breezes of mid-day, not to mention all the swards of green in summer, the total immersion each autumn in the finest of natural forest art, the snow sculptures of winter, the rainbowed choruses of spring. And what can be sweeter than mountain water, all the flowers, tree perfume, the heights of air, the wild pantry?
 
And there's more. Unlike the present urban jaganath, this will go on for what we call forever. My advice to you is, if you're living low and feel unfulfilled, live high.


5 comments:

Chancy said...

Some of us are forced to live in the low lands.
We adapt.

I like that word jaganath and will look for the meaning.

It seems it could also apply to airports and travel restrictions these days? (full body scans or pat downs was on the news tonight)

I am glad I flew a lot back when flying was FUN. :)

Robert Brady said...

Chancy... adaptation is almost as good ;).

As to jaganath (more properly jagannath, but that's even further from 'juggernaut') this site has a good explanation under the section 'Car festival' http://www.odissi.com/orissa/jagannath.htm

And of course, no pat downs or body scans to get to the natural high.

Tabor said...

The comments are just as funny and enjoyable as the post...forgot what I was going to comment.

Victor said...

Awesome. You just put into words what I've always known, but have done a ridiculously efficient job of ignoring, until recently. Something's been nagging at me for years, living in this concrete toilet, because of the so-called "conveniences," to get to living where I know I should be, and shame on me for not more aggressively getting past my obstacles and pursuing it. Enjoy.

Robert Brady said...

Go for it, Victor, and share the experience, if you would.

Go for joy.