Dear Gates of the Arctic

[The Gates of the Arctic National Park—the park that I worked for the previous two summers—is thinking about installing four permanent weather monitoring stations. This is the revised version of a letter that I recently sent to park administrators.]

To the Gates of the Arctic administration:

I am writing this letter to express my opposition to the placement of weather monitoring stations in the Gates of the Arctic National Park. I have read the June 2010 “Environmental Assessment of the Climate Monitoring Program” in which the national parks, preserves and monuments involved have detailed the proposed plans and have considered, what they perceive to be, the stations’ potential drawbacks. The Assessment aptly describes and duly considers the impact the four stations may have on vegetation, soundscape, etc., but I feel it has left the stations’ most serious drawbacks unacknowledged. Explaining what I believe those drawbacks are will be the focus of my letter.

The stations will be—to my knowledge—the first permanent structures that Gates administration erects in the park. Why this historic event wasn’t mentioned in even a footnote in a 106-page document was surprising to say the least. Perhaps the authors of the Assessment saw little reason to point this out because park employees, after all, daily interact with the park in ways that are barely “primitive,” and hardly in accord with primeval wilderness. The author might point out that the park owns and maintains several cabins, or that it uses planes to transport rangers and conduct aerial surveys on an almost daily basis at certain times of the year. In other words, erecting stations in the park may be “no big deal” because we’ve already used the land in ways that are antithetical to wilderness. Thus—the argument goes—because the park has never really been “pure” or entirely “wild,” Gates administration should not trouble themselves with questions of purity and wildness whenever important work needs to be done. I disagree if this line of reasoning is being used. I feel that the difference between maintaining a fifty-year-old cabin (that was built with crude tools well before the inception of the park) and erecting a permanent structure is so huge that the two types of “usage” are hardly comparable. I should add that planes, however intrusive and annoying-to-the-ear as they may be, are necessary so long as the park faces threats that its rangers and scientists must confront. Plus, a plane flying over and landing in the park—there one moment and gone the next—is a completely different type of intrusion than a hunk of metal deliberately placed by park managers that will sully pristine vistas forever.

But I am not as concerned with the loss of aesthetic purity (an unsightly weather station on an otherwise untrammeled mountaintop), as much as I am concerned about the loss of “purity in policy.” The stations break tradition not only with how previous administrations managed the park, but the decision to erect a structure is also a clear rupture with the ideals on which the park was founded. While I believe that the stations’ physical impact will be minor, the decision to install them is an enormous change in tradition, policy, mission and values. It’s a decision that strays from the park’s long-held policy to remove signs of human habitation; not to bring in its own.

The park—since its inception—seems to have managed itself by managing less—a principle, says environmental historian Roderick Nash, upon which “hangs the fate of everything the wilderness preservation movement has tried to achieve.” The stations and other actions taken by administration lead me to believe that we are too quick to act when the park and the animals and plants therein would—in many ways—be better off left alone.

Again, I understand that the stations’ physical impact will be minimal, and that the data the stations gather may benefit the the country and the planet; yet I feel that the stations will have a negative impact in ways that cannot be measured. The negative impact that I speak of is far more difficult to measure than, say, a station’s impact on nearby vegetation or the harm a helicopter does to a soundscape. The consequences I speak of have to do with changes in perception, imagination and reputation. While I understand how difficult it may be to gauge these consequences, I’m still somewhat baffled that the Assessment failed to even passively mention these. In fact, I think it bears mentioning that the Assessment seems to lack the faintest trace of humanity. It appears to have been conceived—not in the mind of a human being—but by a robot from some sleepy cubicle in a windowless government office incapable of imagining what’s really at stake. I understand that the Assessment is protocol and is how things are “normally done,” but the dry, calculated language of the Assessment—full of facts, figures tables and maps—is, to me, representative of how Gates administration perceives the park. The Gates, to them, is anything but “sacred.” Rather, the park exists for visitor enjoyment, scientific exploration, and as a resource for hunters and local subsistence communities. Its value is measured by things that can only be quantified. From both the language of the Assessment and my personal experiences with Gates administration, the park, I believe, is rarely thought of as anything other than a “resource” by the people who manage it. The great conservationist thinkers—Thoreau, Muir, Abbey, and Bob Marshall included—did not think of wildlands or parks as “resources.” They thought of them as sacred places that ought not be decorated with the furnishings of civilization. The stations, I realize, may not cause much “aesthetic damage,” but their presence will alter the park in the imaginations of the citizens who own it. Just as if we were to touch up a historic work of art or revise a phrase in a nation’s founding document, while the artwork or document may not thereafter look any different, by imposing our vision—ever so slightly—on a work of genius, the park, like them, will begin to shed the air of a sacred object.

Arctic explorer and conservationist, Bob Marshall, said, “For me…the most important passion of life is the overpowering desire to escape periodically from the clutches of a mechanistic civilization. The enjoyment of solitude, complete independence, and the beauty of undefiled panoramas is absolutely essential to happiness.” I cannot fathom how the stations are in accord with the values—values that men like Marshall and women like Mardy Murie championed—on which the park was founded. If the administration strays too far from the park that the founders envisioned, I worry the image and reputation of the Gates will not only be put at stake, but the park will soon be at the mercy of future and potentially intrusive scientific endeavors, enhanced visitor accommodations, and our “mechanistic civilization” that creeps in and corrodes the park’s wilderness character.

Anyone who’s been to the Gates and to the parks in the lower-48 knows that the Gates is a park unlike any other. The parks in the lower-48 have roads, facilities, and trails. They’re oftentimes overrun with visitors. Forest fires do not reign free; they’re prescribed. Predatory animals are sometimes tranquilized and moved when in the vicinity of prey species with vulnerable populations. The Gates, however—as the Assessment points out—is “acknowledged as the premier Wilderness park in the national park system.” An 8.5 million acre stretch of wild land with animals living and dying with no human interference is practically unheard of these days. Gates administration should remind themselves that they’re noble protectors of one of last great stretches of wildland on earth, and that they should—because of the park’s unique status as the “premier Wilderness park”—govern itself differently. Administration should not justify that it’s okay to erect weather stations because all or most other parks have stations. Other parks, rather, should look to the Gates to see how the “premier wilderness park” acts.

I think the decision to place weather stations should be weighed with the Park Service (and the world) as a whole in mind. With so many parks over-developed and over-administered, shouldn’t we do everything we can to keep just one park as wild as it can conceivably be? Shouldn’t we play by rules that are different from other parks? Shouldn’t we be highly adverse and skeptical of suggestions that may tarnish the park’s wilderness character in the slightest? We can do everything in our power to keep the Gates the way it’s been for millennia, or we can ever-so-slowly but ever-so-surely evolve as other parks have evolved: like them, we can—with each passing year—accumulate more facilities, technology, roads, and trails; we can drift further and further away from the founders’ ideals to accommodate mass utilization; we can stop thinking of the park as a place that is sacred and more a giant playground, science lab, or game preserve in which scientists, rangers, hunters, and the public exploit rather than visit.

I believe the scientists involved in the plans have good intentions and honorable goals. Their research, in many ways, I’m sure, helps the whole of the park staff protect the park. So I feel that most any proposed scientific project that directly or indirectly helps protect the park ought to be welcomed and encouraged by park administration. I’m opposed to the installation of the weather monitoring stations, however, largely because I cannot fathom how the stations will help protect the park. Surely climate change statistics will help us achieve a better understanding of global warming and surely the statistics will help us come to determinations about how climate change may be affecting the park’s animals and vegetation. But how will the park actually benefit from the data? Surely we cannot install cooling systems over all 8.5 million acres of the park to keep the permafrost from melting. Nor can we—or should we—manipulate animal migration routes which climate change may disturb, as the Assessment points out. Perhaps the data, though, will help legislators craft a bill to combat climate change. This would be a worthy endeavor, yet I highly doubt missing data from the Gates would inhibit the passage of such a bill. Because I fail to see how the stations can help the Gates, I can’t help but deem that the proposal is in direct conflict with the Wilderness Act because the stations do not appear to be “necessary to meet minimum requirements for the administration of the area for the purpose of this Act.” But I do not wish to dwell on legal concerns. The stations, to me, are not about a breach of law, but a breach of values.

Perhaps the most important duty for Gates administration is not just to preserve the wild, but to preserve our idea of what a wild place is. Wilderness philosopher, Jack Turner, says, “Looking at photographs of arches or pictographs, reading a guide book, examining maps, receiving instructions on where to go, where to camp, what to expect, how to act—and being watched over the entire time by a cadre of rangers—is now the normal mode of experience. Most people know no other.” Our idea of wilderness is no longer, as Mardy Murie says, “empty of technology and full of life,” nor a sanctuary where, Bob Marshall says, people come “to rest from the endless chain of mechanization and artificiality which bounds their lives.” Nowadays, our idea of a wild place includes the roads, facilities, guard rails and ambitious management plans that visitors see everywhere in national parks—our “wild places.” The threat of forgetting what’s wild is a real threat. Because people have grown accustomed to “wild places” that have been diluted, declawed, and defanged into national parks, few will ever know what a wild place really looks and feels like. And because few know what a wild place looks or feels like, few will know that a wild place is worth protecting. Turner says that “Intimacy with the fake will not save the real… It is more likely to produce a desire for more fakes.” Unless we vigilantly maintain the Gates’s wilderness character, our country will lose not only one of its last wild places, but also the knowledge and sensations that can only be taught and provoked by “undefiled panoramas” in untrammeled wilderness.

Think of how easily things are forgotten. Think of our skies 150 years ago. From end to end it was sometimes darkened by billion-strong flocks of passenger pigeons. Some say there could have been as many as five billion in North America. But in just a century we overtook their habitats and hunted every last one to extinction. Or think of how it was once common to take in the view of a million stars from almost any porch in America on almost any night. Now, because the great majority of our population lives within a short distance of a smog-producing, light-polluted metropolitan center, only a select few get to nightly see the splendor of Orion’s Belt stretched across the sky. Skies without stars and great flocks of birds have become the norm. And because people today do not know that they’ve been deprived of pleasures enjoyed by past generations, few complain or wish to do anything about it. Soon, we will not know what a wild place should look like just as many don’t know what a clean, healthy, and vibrant sky should look like. And soon, even our “wild” places will bear the signs of an omnipresent government and the contrivances crafted by the ambitious hand of man. And it will all be considered normal.

I am opposed to the stations largely because of my personal experiences in parks of the lower-48—once beautiful places that have fallen from their state of grace—and my many outings in the Gates of the Arctic as a civilian and ranger. My first visit to the Gates was in June of 2005 when I worked at the truck stop in Coldfoot. My first real hike was in the Gates when I climbed a mountain just west of Wiseman. On that trip I saw no sign of human impact. I spotted just one plane. I came across a band of Dall sheep ewes that looked at me as if they’d never before seen a human. That hike profoundly changed my life. Not only did I come down from that mountain a different man, but it fostered in me a deep respect for pure, untrammeled wilderness—enough so that I would, over the years, dedicate my time and energies to restoring and protecting wild places. Over the next five years, I’d live in the arctic seasonally, including two summers as a backcountry ranger for the Gates in 2008 and 2009. Over those years, I developed a sort of “intimacy” with some of the arctic’s rivers, mountains, and animals and—with that—a fear of the forces that threaten to defile their otherwise undisturbed existence.

At Marion Creek—where the Coldfoot rangers live—in just a couple years I saw the trail to the Marion Creek waterfall turned into a bulldozer-wide mud-road blazed by gold miners. At the truck stop at Coldfoot, I’d see pick-up truck after pick-up truck come through with their beds loaded with carcasses and antlers of the caribou that they “hunted” from the driver-side window. While the mining and the killing occurred outside the park, it’s a fitting reminder of how vulnerable even one of hardiest landscapes on earth is when it’s at the mercy of entrepreneurial forces.

Unlike my hiking trip that first summer in ‘05, I spent two 8-day-long patrols on the North Fork of the Koyukuk River last summer where I observed more than 50 planes on each patrol. And I heard an equally troubling amount of planes on the Alatna and Kobuk rivers. It’s difficult to feel what Bob Marshall felt—what people yearn to feel in places like the Gates—when you’re continually reminded of the “mechanization and artificiality” of civilization screaming overhead. Many of those planes, I was later told, were likely manned by Park Service staff doing sheep surveys. On another occasion, after casually telling park administration about a wolf that had curiously (but not aggressively) followed me and my partner down a rarely-visited river valley, we got email inquiries within a week from a park administrator wondering whether it should be shot (albeit with rubber bullets). The Gates faces many threats, and among them, I believe, are its sometimes overly-ambitious, trigger-happy protectors. While we have legitimate reason to worry about climate change disturbing our park, I think we have just as much reason to be concerned about our own relationship with it.

A business or a foundation might best function when ambitious and action-minded people are pulling the levers, but a park should be managed by thoughtful, deliberative men and women who not only understand the intangible values of the park, but who—most importantly—love the park as they might love a person, a country, or a home. I feel the plants and animals should be considered the park’s real owners, and we, just visitors who dare not meddle in work only suited for deities.

In just a few of years I have seen considerable change in the park and in the arctic, and I worry that the stations will be the first of many future incursions. Any casual observer of history knows the Gates will someday be at the mercy of encroaching human settlements, hot-headed mineral and resource robbers, and invasive technologies. I feel the Gates ought to have a pure and principled policy and tradition in place to best repel the advances of a mercilessly exploitative and avaricious civilization that will be at the park’s doorstep sooner than later.

The Gates, to me, is a holy place; and holy places, I believe, should not be subjected to intrusive scientific endeavors, commercial exploitation, guard rails, signs, weather stations and—most importantly—compromise. The Gates should be protected and treasured as a sanctuary; and its spotless splendor kept out of reach from the oily touch of man.

Let’s keep it wild,

Ken Ilgunas

The animals of Acorn Abbey

Acorn Abbey is low on people but full of life. Stuffed into the woods with a trickling stream curving through the property, the Abbey and the surrounding wild lands are home to transient coyotes, transient black bears, deer, raccoons, squirrels, skunks, skinks, and a wide-variety of birds. I try to photograph every animal I see.

Here’s a family of wild turkeys that stop by every so often.

I caught this turtle sleeping by the creek.

Sometimes we can hear bull frogs croaking by the creek. This little guy has a ways to go before he can belt um out like the best of them.

We have lots of deer in the area. We had to build a fence around the garden to keep them out of our crops.

David is letting the forest “grow up” onto his property. The new growth is perfect habitat for small critters like this rabbit.

We caught sight of this snake a few times. It’s at least six feet long. My next picture was going to be of a family of wrens living in a nest they built by the propane tank but the snake ate them.

The monarch butterflies like to aggregate in clusters close to water.

Spider web and tunnel that drains Wells Creek into the Dan River.

One of our neighbors has two horses.

We have three chickens who give us, on average, two eggs a day. Since erecting the fence (400-foot perimeter), we’ve released them from their coop. We’ve named them after Christian virtues: the red one is Ruth; the black one, Chastity, and there’s a third not in the picture called Patience.

On my jogs to the Dan River I come across this puppy. Because Ruth pecks my toes when I go near her and because Lily won’t let me touch her with a ten-foot pole and because David’s not a 5’7 blonde whose smile makes my knees buckle, I live as a monk at Acorn Abbey and have no physical contact with anything animate except this puppy who has yet to become leery of my overly-passionate embraces.

I’ve made some progress with David’s cat, Lily. She’s still squeamish about me touching her, but she no longer carries an air of dignified disgust when I’m in her presence.

David–the abbey’s owner–is a four-limbed hominid who enjoys long walks to the mailbox, science-fiction novels, Arkansas black apples, and writing entries about simple living on his blog here. He doesn’t like “topped” trees, long periods of drought, and the smell of food burning in a hot oven.

Mr. Groundhog visits Acorn Abbey every day. David and I were fond of him until he began eating our sweet potato patch. I spent several days building a crude wooden structure from natural materials to keep him out. From the house I watched Mr. Groundhog waddle up to my fortress and–much to my dismay–slip over effortlessly. I ran into the garden and confronted him. For a moment, just feet away from each other, we stared into each others’ eyes; each of us struck motionless by our brush with a wild animal. I think we realized then–upon me catching him with a big leaf hanging from his bottom lip–that we were no longer friends, but mortal enemies. (I wish I knew someone with an elegant British accent to narrate the video below.)

I took an up-close shot of the next animal. Bragging rights go to whoever guesses the correct animal first!

Dear Paul’s daughter

About half a year ago, a father named Paul posted the following comment after one of my entries:

Hi Ken.

I’ve been reading your stories since fall. You remind me of myself at that age. I have a daughter, I’m curious of your thoughts. She’s 21. I asked her what she sees in the next 5 years for herself, what are her goals or dreams. With no hesitation she said “finish school, get married, have a baby.” Just like that. Later she said the married part is just for us, her parents. I’m shocked. I asked her why a family so soon? (my wife and I didn’t start our family until our upper 30s). What about traveling the world? She said she moved a lot growing up and has seen what she wants to see. We did move a few times, but have been where we are now since she was 10 years old. I’m her father and I want to support her and her dreams. But her dreams are a lot smaller than what mine are for her. What would you say to her?

Paul

***

Dear Paul’s daughter,

Soon after I got your father’s message, I wrote out a big, inspirational, sell-all-your-stuff, and take-to-the open-road response. It was terrible. Really awful stuff. The problem was: while writing it, I got my boots stuck in some very swampy philosophical and psychological terrain. The only way to give you a clear message—I thought—was to over-simplify, dumb-down, and abandon nuance. I realized I was giving the sort of advice that a fundamentalist might give—advice that’s full of passion, but without any brains.

Sometimes I get downright zealous about voluntary poverty. In such a frame of mind, it’s easy to separate people into those who’ve been “saved” and those who’ve “sold out.” It’s sort of like believing in a religion. Doubt is cast aside because it’s easier and more convenient just to thoughtlessly believe in something. At my worst, I might think that people who enter the workforce and start families early have been “brainwashed” by the “system”—some ambiguous omnipresent demon carrying a trident—each prong representing the corporations, politicians, and consumer-capitalist elite who supposedly govern our lives. Oh, if only life were so simple! If only we could discern the good guys from the bad by the color of their hats. Things—you don’t need me to tell you—are far more complex. And only an irresponsible, undisciplined mind would preach such nonsense.

I know that living in a van is not for everyone. Hitchhiking is not for everyone. Nor is standing in front of a grizzly and reveling in some primordial high. So before I go on, know that I understand that you might be a vastly different person than me. I do not plan on telling you to live like me. Not one bit.

Just as many long for the freedom of the open road, dwelling in us, too, are fantasies about hearth and home. We have conflicting desires and conflicting interests. Consider “freedom” for example. Surely, no one wants to be ruled as a slave, but few, I’d guess, would want to be completely free either. Take away gravity from a man, and the first thing he’ll want is his feet back on the ground. I suppose what I’m getting at is that it’s utterly, undeniably human to seek safety and security, perhaps in the form of a stable job, a permanent home, or—in the case of our floating man—gravity. These are natural desires that should not be derided. Desires that I should not deride just because they do not intrigue me as much as they intrigue others.

I should also note that I feel somewhat awkward giving advice at the meager age of 27. As your senior by just six years, please forgive me for taking so bold a stance at so young an age when it might be more prudent to hold my tongue. Perhaps you ought to seek advice from someone who time has blessed with wisdom.

I’m writing this letter anyway because I feel compelled to speak to young people. Just a few years ago I was in a similar position as you: uncertain about my future, anxious about my next decision, and drawn toward a life that was not of my own making. I see young people all around me who are living lives of “quiet desperation.” I see young people living non-deliberately and without self-awareness. I see young people who are not cognizant of the many forces pushing us down certain paths and compelling us to make certain life decisions. If it wasn’t for some last second advice that I’d gotten from an unexpected source when I was 21, then maybe I’d be living a life of quiet desperation today, too.

I’m eager to respond to your father’s request because it tortures me to see young people who fail to seize control of their own lives—people whose fullest potentials will never be realized and who, as Theodore Roosevelt says, “neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”

I’ve never had the chance (or the guts) to sit down with one of them and tell them something that they may have never heard before. So this letter is not really just for you, but for anyone who has felt how I felt when I was 21.

I remember myself at that age sitting in my car in a University at Buffalo parking lot, waiting for a spot to open up. My life, at the time, was far from ideal. Four days a week, I’d push carts at the Home Depot. Between long commutes from my parents’ home to school, a 30-hour a week job, an onslaught of papers and exams, and an ever-mounting dunghill of debt, I was starting to lose it. Throughout my undergraduate years, I picked up a minor case of Turrets. My hair began falling out. During class, I had to resist the inexplicable urge to jam the point of my pen into the back of my hand. To make things worse, I had no summer job prospects except more cart-pushing at the ’Pot. Summer after summer, I’d make excuses to not do what I really wanted to do. I wanted to drive to Alaska more than anything in the whole goddamned world.

In that parking lot, waiting in my car, listening to my stereo, out of nowhere a voice whispered four little words into my ear. I looked at the backseat to see who had snuck into my car. Much to my horror, no one was back there. I opened the door and looked beneath my car. No one. I got back in, sat back down, and thought about what was happening to me, why I heard this voice, and what those four little words meant.

Two weeks later, I turned in my orange apron and embarked on a journey that I’ve yet to return from.

So, Paul’s daughter…

I beseech you to do one thing for me: Imagine yourself as an 80-year-old woman lying on her deathbed, thinking about how she lived her life. How would you like to feel? Certainly you’d prefer—as we all would—to bask in the memories of a life well-lived. Should it not be our foremost ambition in life to give ourselves such solace in our last moments—not just so our last breaths are exhaled with peace of mind, but so that—with that moment always in our thoughts—we can live our lives deliberately, forever guided by the reminder to cherish this wondrous thing called life, and to carefully blaze a life path that leads from dream to dream and from happy memory to happy memory?

John Taylor Gatto , a public school teacher and historian, said, “Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges; it should allow you to find values which will be your road map through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are; whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important; how to live and how to die.”

I’m guessing that your education didn’t teach you these things, as mine didn’t for me. Schools, parents, and friends can show us certain beliefs and values, but it’s up to us—as unique individuals with our own particular needs, inclinations, propensities, and idiosyncrasies—to decide how to live and how to die in the way the best suits us.

So my advice is not to sell your stuff and buy a plane ticket to an exotic country; it’s to, as Socrates says, know thyself.

Know thyself better than anything. Write, think, read, talk. Question everything. Don’t just moan in your diary; figure out why you are the way you are. Analyze every emotion, every thought. Drop the texts and make you the object of your study. Play the detective and solve the mystery of you. Ask yourself why certain memories have embedded themselves in your mind, while others never stuck? What is it that makes you, you?

You speak English because you’ve grown up around English speakers. Just as you’ve come to speak the language, you’ve adopted certain cultural customs, beliefs and values. But just as there are other languages to which you haven’t been exposed, there are other ways to live—other ways (depending on the sort of person you are)—that might be more agreeable than the standard “husband-baby-job” formula that has come to be considered “normal” by our society, but is not, for many, the surest route to happiness.

We’ve been told what to do since birth. We’ve been told to do well in school, get good jobs, buy a home, and start a family. Perhaps you’ve been told something else, but you’ve been told something. Our advisors seem to sing together as if part of a choir, which suggests to me that a lot of people believe that there’s a formula for happiness and a certain way to live. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Why should we take advice from our society in the first place? If I saw a society comprised entirely of enriched, happy, peaceful and healthy citizens then maybe I’d think society was on to something. And while I do not deny that there are many wonderful things about our country and our society, I will never accept its tenets as gospel so long as Wal-Mart workers are being trampled in Black Friday stampedes, so long as children are raised more by TVs and teachers than by their parents, so long as a huge chunk of our population has no access to affordable health care, so long as we thoughtlessly pollute the waters we drink and the air we breathe. I point this all out because—just as we shouldn’t believe the nut on the city street yapping that “The End is Nigh!” (even though he may have some reasonable things to say)—we should also be deeply skeptical about what our sometimes-deranged society expects from us too (even though it may have some reasonable things to say).

There comes a time in a young person’s life when I think she ought to detach herself from the ties that bind; to separate herself—if just temporarily—from family, friends, and society; to give herself time to wander in the woods, sit by a creek, walk in foreign lands, and to turn inward; to give herself a chance to begin to know herself.

While you may feel bound to your family, no human should be bound to think as they do. We are bestowed with different capacities, propensities, talents and faults—characteristics oftentimes far different than those of the people who birthed and reared us. So, to feel compelled to live as everyone else lives—even if such a lifestyle doesn’t agree with us—is a dishonor to the diversity of the human experience.

You must discover for yourself what is right and true. And what is right and true must come from you. Not the “you” that’s been indoctrinated in compulsory schooling, not the “you” that’s been told by TV that thin is beautiful, not the “you” that’s been told that a productive citizen is one that seeks riches.

I’m talking about the “you” that our culture has not been able to get its greasy hands on. I’m talking about some small piece of you that is pure and unalterable. Call it your nature, your soul, your authentic self, your genes. Call it what you will, but I believe there is a part of us that culture cannot reach. And when it speaks, it ought not be ignored.

Sometimes I think people cannot awaken the “sleeping prince” inside them. Or maybe the prince cannot be heard amidst the clamor of civilized life, drowned out by the billboards, iPods, TVs, teachers, parents, friends, politicians, gurus, and self-help books. Give yourself some peace and quiet and take to the woods or desert or mountains. Maybe then you’ll realize that his murmurings have gone unheard all this time.

I’ve received oodles of terrible advice from my seniors. I’ve been told that the things I’ve wanted to do couldn’t be done; that such and such a thing is “impossible.” Over and over again, I’ve proved them wrong. But the one line of advice that’s always stuck—which has always made perfect sense to me—is to, as they say—sometimes with wistful, nostalgic, and envious tones—“enjoy it while you’re young.”

Have you ever wondered why married people (excluding newlyweds) never seem to be dripping with happiness? Ever wonder why so many middle-aged men go through mid-life crises? Ever wonder why post-war-years housewives—who had all their needs satisfied—commonly suffered from depression? Ever wonder why almost ever older person says to “enjoy it while you’re young”?

There are phases or—as Shakespeare says—stages to one’s life. Let yourself be the “lover/ Sighing like furnace” or the “soldier/ Full of strange oaths… seeking the bubble reputation.” Embrace the stages as they come, but do not skip ahead to motherhood just because you’ve been advised to or because it’s expected of you. Scratch your itches. Trust your instincts. Follow your bliss, as Joseph Campbell says. Embrace the phase you’re in. Know thyself, and you’ll begin to learn how to live and how to die.

You may very well decide that to “finish school, get married, and have a baby” is what’s right for you—I’m not saying that it isn’t. I’m just saying, don’t commit to anything of that magnitude until every fiber in you aches for it; until you know you want it with as much clarity, certainty, and confidence as the starving man who knows he wants food.

I go to school with so many PhD students who have thoughtlessly surrendered their autonomy and sentenced themselves to a lifelong livelihood that often doesn’t befit their character or interests. They made their decisions hastily, acting before first knowing themselves. And now they’re more or less locked into lives from which they cannot escape.

It amazes me how freely people surrender their autonomy. People get nervous when they don’t have a job, obligations, or things to pay for. Debt isn’t just something forced upon us; it’s sought so we have a game to play, a battle to fight, a life to live. But I feel our autonomy should be cherished, regardless of whether it makes us uncomfortable. Your autonomy gives you a chance to develop and mature and grow into who you really are.

If you’re not sure what you want to do, my advice is to not do anything that ties you down. Your revelation will come soon enough. Find odd jobs, take more classes, sit on a tree trunk, do anything but commit to a lifestyle for lack of other ideas. And travel for God’s sake! Your peregrinations with your family do not count as “travel.” Spin your globe and stop it with your finger. Once you point to a place that makes you squirm in your chair, you’ve found a suitable destination. Real traveling is a cold, hard business. It’s not about taking pictures next to iconic cultural relics or collecting National Park stamps. Real travel is about testing yourself; it’s about trudging through uncomfortable territories; expanding your horizons; learning new points of view; and developing your selfhood. When you’re traveling alone, you’re forced to turn inward.

Maslow says we have a hierarchy of needs. We can’t ascend to the top of the pyramid (self-actualization, creativity, purpose, meaning) until we have the necessities on the bottom (food, clothing, and shelter). It’s funny, though, how so few people choose to realize their true potential, electing instead to dwell on the bottom of the pyramid, widening their waistbands, buying flashier clothes, and building bigger and more expensive shelters. While these lower needs are satisfied, other needs are ignored. They will not learn the thrill of enrichment and the world will suffer for want of greatness.

I think it ought to be our sacred duty to cherish this rare opportunity. So few get to live in a place and age when we can easily satisfy our most basic needs. What a privilege it is to have the opportunity to think, invent, create, and overthrow. What a wonderful father you have who is encouraging you to do as you wish, and not as he wishes! We should frown upon the person who spurns this honor to self-actualize the same way we frown upon the person who wastes food or abandons loved ones.

Just as nature has given us legs to walk the earth and lungs to breathe its air, it’s bestowed us with eyes that can make out the faint glimmerings of stars so we can wonder, imagine and dream. Don’t let the foul cloud of civilization come between you and your innermost dreams. Know thyself and have a kid. Know thyself and live in a van. Know thyself and rebel or know thyself and conform. Whatever you do, know thyself.

As a young man, there was no one to give me the advice I really needed. In high school, no one talked about—as an alternative to going to college—traveling, working odd jobs, or walking across the country. No one spoke about voluntary poverty and certainly no one talked about saving money by living in a van.

The life prescribed for me, for reasons unexplainable, would have led to unhappiness, failure, maybe even insanity. But everything changed when I heard those four little words in that campus parking lot—spoken to me, not by “God,” my stereo, or another “personality” but by a voice so crisp and clear I can hear it as I type this letter. Sitting in that car, I found it interesting that the voice sounded like my own.