When you receive this month's newsletter I will be in the Bear Tooth Wilderness, which is in the Absoska Mountains and the Yellowstone ecosystem. Some of you know that I've been going to cowboy country for years. I go because I'm totally inspired by the cowboy way.
Over 20 years I've cobbled together something akin to a resume ... horse hand ...pack hand ...camp building hand ... I even was camp cook on a work detail (no dudes).
Now I will be the camp cook for a serious elk hunt ... could be 20 degrees below the entire 8 days ... chop wood for over 6 hours every day ... take 25 horses to water twice a day (also chop hole in the ice to get to water). I keep the hearth going and am expected to cook steaks ... scrambled eggs with cream cheese and chives ... world class chili ... even bake biscuits. And, I have to convince guys who are skilled (and spending a small fortune) that I do this for a living.
I am excited. I am scared.
I've been preparing for 20 years. I've been spending 7 weeks preparing and "staging" my gear.
This will be a "peak experience".
Abraham Maslow coined the term "peak experience". Maslow was keen on studying happiness ... amongst his other areas of research. His work was ground breaking. Particularly, Maslow was looking at quasi-mystical and mystical experiences that were not non secular. He viewed these events as intense experiences of happiness, well being and the unity of all things. A moment of clarity and wonder.
Maslow suggested that there were two kinds of these experiences ... relative, ... and absolute. The relative ones connect to inspirations, ecstasies and an individual's own experiences. "Absolute" refers to the non religious mystical ... timeless ... spaceless ... where subject and object become one.
Maslow noted that happy people have more peak experiences than unhappy people. He went further, people who move close to "self actualization" recognize these real events to a degree that they organize their life so as to have them on a consistent basis. As our dear friend of the firm, Earl Broussard, put it ... It's the ability to wake up every morning knowing that you have something to look forward to." More!! More!! Earl.
Have a great month.
W2
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