Shit. All this time making fun of grumpy old men, and I think I’m starting to understand them. Heck, I’m in danger of becoming one. How’d that happen? Aside from the lucky ones among us, the battle not becoming one. The natural tendency for a lot of people is get annoyed at all the change around them.
I never understood it. But what I’ve noticed as I get older, is that rather than taking life as it comes and adapting to it, I’ve been around long enough to feel like I know how it works. How things should go. And slowly, little by little, it dawns on me that the world is changing. Just like it always has. So in that sense the world hasn’t changed. Change is its natural state. The world has stayed the same (that is, remained ever-changing). What changed is me. Now I have expectations.
A perfect example: Nature. I moved west in the mid-90’s. I took this new landscape as it was. I hiked and backpacked in the mountains and desert, enjoying all of it. Somewhere along the way, my brain decided “this is how these places are”. This is how it is. Backpack into a mountain lake and have it to yourself. Drive down a desert road and find an epic camp spot, unmarked and mostly unnoticed. A big juniper tree, a small redrock cliff, a view of the desert expanse and a nice little fire ring.
Then I come back two years later. Tree: mostly chopped down live for firewood. Fire ring: now four feet wide, piled high with broken glass and ash. Oh, and for some reason there are now 6 more fire rings within 20 yards, as if every person at the campsite needed their own fire.
Previously rough dirt, sand and rock roads are graded to a nice smooth surface any minivan or 30′ RV can drive down, signs telling you where to go, a paved parking lot with toilets. Now an isolated section of desert with a cool hike is overrun with people.
I do believe things are changing faster now than in the past. With the internet and explosion of camper trailers and UTVs, things are getting out of hand on public land fast. But, things always change. Everyone sees major change in their lifetime. The real shift is that I’ve started expecting things to stay the same.
I’m not there yet, but what I’ve realized is that I need to let it go. Otherwise I’m always going to be mildly disgusted by what I see. I’m not one to propose population control, but most of my issues come down to too many people. There have always been both people who take care of the land, and people who trash it. But the sheer number of people out there these days means that even those taking care of it are still having a huge impact, on the land as well as the experience of it (the end of solitude), not to mention the effects of all the people who actively trash it. And the solution is to regulate it. Build a campground, put in a toilet. Necessary, but now the area is “developed”.
But I can’t do anything about that. I need to accept it, or I won’t have any fun out there anymore. I need to push myself to accept that change is the state of things. Attachment is suffering.
I feel for grumpy old men. I understand them. But I will fight not to join them.