Navigating the Roadblocks

Once in a while things happen where you run into roadblocks.  They’re either set there by you, for yourself as a stop gap in the journey to indicate that you know whats down that road, and you have no need to wander there.  

They could also be put there unintentionally by yourself not realizing you’re roadblocking yourself from getting somewhere.  These ones are usually the most frustrating ones because you know they’re there.  But, you may not necessarily realize that you’re the one that put them there.  If you are self aware enough to know that you’re the one that put them there, the last question is why are they there.  This honesty with oneself is a very difficult pill to swallow. 

I have a few very active roadblocks along my path, in my case I call them guard rails, because they aren’t blocking a particular path, they’re keeping me on the one that I’m on. These road blocks can be anything from a decision to stop allowing yourself to use someone as a filler, forcing you to actually identify what is happening with yourself to seek out something that fills the void.   Others examples could be that you believe that someone or something will cause you pain or try and harm you, because they haven’t figured out what they’re looking for so you put road blocks up preventing them from getting back to you.  These ones are the tricky kind, because obviously the person has power and control over you to get you to reach to this extent to protect yourself.  If you think you might be doing this to yourself or someone, ask yourself this; “Would someone who genuinely cares about me make me feel like I need to put up obstacles so they can’t get at me?”  It’s a very difficult question to answer honestly, and only you can do that for yourself.  I can’t tell you what the right answer for you is.  It all very much depends on the relationship you have with yourself.  We aren’t here to judge you for that.  

What we are here for is for me to share some of my struggles in a fun and happy anecdote so that people identify with someone else to feel less isolated.  That’s legitimately what I want to achieve here.  

Let me tell you about some newly discovered roadblocks in my life, these ones are ones where I’ve been have found road blocks when trying to maintain relationships with others.  A few years ago, I was out with someone who (now I realize) had developed feelings for me when I wasn’t at a point where I could even like myself, let alone fathom how anyone else could.  I kept them at arms length, encouraged their progress towards relationships, and one day I went to contact them to get an update on their life I found they didn’t know who was contacting them.  This didn’t shock me, what followed was complete silence, that’s what shocked me.  Knowing that not everyone is particularly good at dialogue and communication I dismissed it this time.  It wasn’t until a subsequent attempt to contact them ended the same way that I found that there was a definite road block up and I wasn’t welcome to wander down that path.  In fact, the freeway exit had been removed entirely and the highway had been re-routed.  Now, obviously this type of thing can be upsetting, you might feel angry that someone doesn’t want to share their life with you.  I didn’t go there, at no point did I blame the individual for anything other than not telling me what I did.  Which lead me to believe that whatever I did was beyond reproach in their mind. I didn’t deserve any explanation from them, even if I had asked.  (Which I did, and was  unanswered.)  So, to walk away from that, I internalized it and wondered if I had done something to self-sabotage the relationship, or if I just didn’t give them what they wanted and they moved along in a very definite way.  What’s troubling about this whole thing is that we had a friendship prior to any feelings being developed. Granted, the attraction was immediate. I don’t think that’s changed. 

There are many relationships we look back on and see how they fizzled off, how they ended abruptly, and how they will never be what they were.  This is an indication that we need to give ourselves closure.  It’s not easy to forgive ourselves when we blame ourselves for something when we don’t really know what we did.  In order to grow from it, we can reflect, as much as possible, try better next time.   The best course of action if it will make you feel better, is look in the general direction of where you think the person might be, whisper the words “I’m sorry, goodbye” and let the wind carry your message to them.  If you’re a believer in the powers of the universe delivering your message it will get there, and may just be the weight that gets lifted off their shoulders and carried away to make things better for them.  I mean, you initially hoped for good things for this person, that shouldn’t change just because you aren’t in their life, should it?

Being roadblocked is a form of rejection, it’s a challenge to accept and carry on from.  However, creating roadblocks for other people is commonplace and is just as rejecting for them as it would be for you.

I place roadblocks in a variety of ways.  The simplest is the “I’m really busy, too busy to contact you, even though I’m thinking about you every minute of the day, and not contacting you is really hard.” way of road blocking someone.  This is more of a test of the infrastructure and to see if they’ve picked up on how needy you are.  Most people know how needy other people in their lives are, so you may as well just let the gloves fall and either walk away all together (applying the Brad Pitt Rule) or fall on your sword and reach out.   If you’re playing either version of this game you need to ask yourself a couple of questions, “If they cared about me the way I want them to, I wouldn’t be going through this bullshit.”  Hard pill to swallow, but that’s the long and the short of it.  Especially if you feel like someone is just feeding you sporadically like a garden.  The key to a successful garden is daily nurturing and attention.  Watering some flowers once a week and hoping they flourish into a lush and beautiful landscape is likely going to lead to disappointment. 

The other roadblocks can range from placing people in the friendzone, or spending time with people who don’t have an interest, or distraction with projects, basecamps, or becoming a workaholic.  All of these things are effective for one thing, being alone.  If your end game is alone then there’s a recipe for that.  Hit the local pet shelter, adopt fifty cats, wander to a thrift store and pick up a few town gowns and some slacks for the front yard.  Become the eccentric that lives on the block watering their shrubs with a fedora and a tweed.  If you’re me, your end game isn’t alone with a tweed.  Your end game is someone who is adventurous and active that will motivate you to get out there and enjoy the world with someone.  You want someone you can show your favourite corners of the world to, Netflix and chill will be fine for the down time, but essentially, someone with stamps in all their passports is going to win your heart over.  They’re out there for all of us.  We just need to be at a point where we are ready to love ourselves enough to have that amplified by someone else.  Until then, keep watering that flower bed, renovating those houses, wandering hiking trails, going on adventures by yourself.  You might feel like the person for you will never be found because they are on the other side of the world doing what they love, while you’re over here doing what you love.  That’s why they invented layovers, and magical bumps in the road to shake us onto the path we were destined to. 

Karpe diem, have faith that the rougher the road the more right the path.  If success were easy, everyone would be successful.  (That’s a lot of cliches)

Where the fuck did you come from?

Ever meet someone and think to yourself; “Holy FUCK! this person is the best thing since Microwave Popcorn in a Pop-up Bowl!!!!”

There’s this strange phenomena that occurs whenever I am feeling lonely, and I meet anyone that can form a sentence using adverbs and adjectives without hash tagging them. This phenomena is what I refer to as “Falling off the mother fucking cliff”  why do I call it that?  Go fall off a cliff, and it won’t take long before you too realize just how helpless it is to fight what is happening to you.  No matter what you try to do, you can’t stop falling. (Just like that Alicia Keys song.) So, resolve yourself to the fact that you fell off the cliff and accept that you are now falling.  If you can’t resolve yourself to falling, you’re just going to come off as a lunatic. (Kind of like Tyler Duerden in Fightclub as he fights himself in the parking lot.)  So… there is some advice for people out there that have found themselves falling off the cliff, and it is really simple.  

So, back to my falling off the mother fucking cliff.  Imagine this, in the midst of moving basecamp, just as I was getting some of the finer details set in place and figuring, yes I’m good, I can do this, then in struts a hiker dressed to the nines in the latest hiking technology with all the gear you thought you would want to have.  They’re there, standing in the middle of your solitude and looking down on you as though they’re just as surprised to see you as you are them.   Now, keeping in mind, I’ve been in various parts of the bush since the fall.  I don’t get a lot of interaction with people.  Usually when I do, it’s in a controlled and coordinated manner.  Having someone take the reins and walk into my world where I have no control was a bit off putting.  I was unsure if what was happening was real. 

Then, we spoke, for hours actually.  It seemed like there would never be anything we couldn’t talk about.  Maybe it was the loneliness and the isolation that did it, and that human interaction felt so good at this moment.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that somehow I lost my footing and fell off that mother fucking cliff.  Now, not sure if you’ve been hiking ever or not, but the objective is to follow a trail, or plan and get home before dark.  So, like all great things, they must come to an end.  I wanted nothing more than for this hiker to stay with me all night, but really, I had just moved my base camp and wasn’t exactly set up to accommodate anyone but myself at this point. Really, what am I supposed to say?  “Hey, wanna stick around, I have a great pot of beans and chilli to make, and we can roll up into one sleeping bag for the night…. what do ya say?”

I know many that would scoff me for not trying, but alas, that is not my style.  I pointed the hiker in the direction of my blog, wished them well on their way, and gave them some of my earlier jerky that I had made.  (It was made from squirrels, and I wasn’t really a fan.)

So, since the hiker disappeared over the summit and returned to where people shower more than once a fortnight, I’m not sure if they will remember me or not.  Now, I’m up in this wilderness until spring melt, that is what I planned, and promised myself.  I am going no where until then.  When I had this encounter, my basecamp had just been moved and much of it was still packed up…. It would be very very easy to get out of here and follow them down the face.  Who knows if the hiker even cared about me or if they were just afraid of becoming my “Mountain Wife” and said what they needed to say to get out of here.  Needless to say, here I sit thinking about them returning to me, to spend the rest of the winter with me collecting nuts, trapping critters, and roaming the lands like cro-magnon hunter gatherers, grunting and hunting. 

It’s been 4 days since they left the basecamp, I expect they made it home and have returned to their normal programming.  I’m a bit too far out to expect to see them terribly soon, but I have made instructions to the steno pool monitoring blog comments that they are to make every attempt to send them back out this way after I get some more stores sent out so I can offer a proper reception.  That is what is referred to as falling of a mother fucking cliff.  It’s irrational processing of thoughts and playing out a storyline faster that it actually plays out so that you can determine if there is a point in continuing. It’s a fantastic little place where you wonder why the heck you do what you do.

So, when you fall off the cliff, because you can’t get back onto it, the best approach is to leave your body, and let your brain take over where the irrational is playing in, only then will you see the truth in what the situation is.  I’ve fallen off the cliff as a result of people being nice…. that’s the mind fuck that is referred to as wishful thinking.  The only thing worse than falling off the cliff, is for both of you to do it simultaneously.  That’s when real damage is done.

Ceasar!!!!

So I know that many of you think that I may have died, based on the panic stricken messages that I did not receive over the holidays inquiring to the status of my health, and safety.  It’s really easy to feel unloved when you’re out of sight and out of mind.  However, at the same time, the fact that no one is nagging me is a good indication in the faith that people put in my ability to go this alone and be able to navigate and survive the wilderness on my own with the tools of my own devices.  So we can appreciate that, plus, I’m fucking awesome, what the hell is there to worry about.

The past month has been an interesting adventure.  I had a few days where I just didn’t feel like giving a shit about anything.  I didn’t set any trap lines, I didn’t gather any food, I didn’t really do much.  I slept a lot, dipped into emergency food stores (which isn’t a big deal as long as I replenish them.)  Days like this happen, you just have to be able to roll with the punches.  Also, there have been some pretty intense planning and strategy sessions which can be exhaustive if you don’t manage the amount of time and energy you put into building your next strategy.  The strategy I was working on was how to move basecamp and make it more secure.  A plan that will rely heavily on a solid strategy, that is executed with precision and discipline.  There are logistics to consider, there are improvements needed, and then there is the physical security aspects of having a basecamp on your own in somewhat new territory.   So, I worked on that a lot which took me away from the primal needs of my day to day.  That’s why you pack a contingency ration and use it as needed.  I’ve already sent out a replenish order for the things I have used so I’m good that way. 

Whenever I establish a basecamp, I hold a ceremony to commission each and every basecamp.  The current basecamp was commissioned with a snowball being thrown at the door in November to symbolize the impenetrable strength that it is to represent to me.  I’ve also had them commissioned by myself as I sometimes run around acting like I am Ceasar Paulo of the Middle of Nowhere. I run around pretending the trees are my army and are all standing at attention for me, ignoring the fact that no matter what I would ask them to do would probably be ignored.

In any case, I consider myself royalty and think pretty highly of myself.  Really though, I’m the most amazing human for miles and miles. So, in building my strategy and plan for moving my basecamp, which is a phenomenal undertaking both emotionally, and logistically.  I found a few things that rang true to any plan and have established some rules to follow whenever you are making plans to change anything be it moving a basecamp from one summit to another at 1300 meters above sea level, or just making a plan for your own life.  

Rule 1, Avoid critics.  These fuckers will do anything to see you fail, they will have some valid criticisms that will help you plan better, but at the same time, they don’t understand your journey, so don’t let their opinion or criticisms fuck with the plans you are making for your life.  They wont be there if you fail, other than to be smug about it anyhow so really.  Just skip the critic part. 

Rule 2, Keep the plan a secret.  Letting people in on your plans, gives them opportunities to throw wrenches into your plan.  Act like a publicly traded company that is just about to announce  a super huge deal that will send shares soaring.  “Loose lips, sink ships” (and are unattractive.)

Rule 3,  Have a smart plan, think about possible set backs, and make a contingency for each. Shit happens, theres no reason you should feel defeated because something happens that you aren’t ready for.  Figure out what the issues will be and then figure out the best way to address them to accomplish what needs to be accomplished.  Simple right?  Some people have trouble putting this one into practice. 

Rule 4, Assume that no one will help you.  In my case, I’m in this alone, I have no one to help.  I mean sure, the squirrels and moose are going to stare at me and monitor the progress, but they sure as shit aren’t going to be helping move my piles of crap from one camp to the next.  I have to know that I can do it on my own, and that I will be able to maintain and sustain on my own as well.  Look at your plan this way.  If you do have help, go back to rule three, and factor that help not being there as it’s likely that at some point you will be let down by a support. 

Rule 5, don’t worry about it, just get doing it.  It will happen.  Set yourself some small victories that can be measured easily.  For example.  I set the goal that I want to move from my current position, to another position elsewhere.  First thing I needed to do was to decide where I wanted to be.  Once that was decided, I started thinking about how much I needed to accomplish in order to get there.  I broke down this evaluation into groups of things that needed to be done to prepare, and each of those things once completed became a point on the scale that measured the success.  The more you accomplish in the right direction, the easier it gets.  Setting small points to be at in order to achieve a larger goal breaks it up into small things that you can achieve and are less overwhelming. 

So, when you’re running around acting like Cesar on the side of a mountain (Maybe I’m more like Moses) you can remember that in life, you are the King (or queen) and you control the environment you are in and the things you allow to happen become a part of your success.  With that, I’m going to cook up some beans and fart myself into tomorrow. 

Hail Ceasar!