Reflection paper
By: Gerald Gooco

When violet imperial asked me if i could compose a kind of reflection paper for some newsletter, one thought ran through my mind, the one thing i have always wanted to ask her since ages ago:"are you out of your mind?". But those of you who have known violet would have realized that this has long been an established fact. i thought maybe i should just mention the names of all those people i hiked with. that would run many pages. easy work, i say.But since i agreed to this anyway,well, what the heck.

When i first joined a formal hiking group{we are very particular not to call ourselves mountaineers. us having too much respect for hard core stuff}, i did not particulary expect that i would be hooked on it for quite some time. all i wanted was to try and see what this hullabaloo is all about: eco-tourism, environmentalism, communing with nature, again the word-mountaineering,etc.But you know what they say: life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. one thing is that i never regretted it. i started with rubber shoes,worn out knapsack bag,borrowed tent, borrowed everything.little by little, and i say this if you are an ordinary employee with very ordinary salary, i got to own the stuff that i thought makes me a full pledged hiker: legit hiking shoes,tents,bags,sleeping bags, gadgets and gizmos, the works! the irony is that by the time i thought i had it made, 2 things unmake it which you can't do anything about, salaries big and small: bad knees and lack of time. i guess the bad knees happen when you overstressed yourself. i mean,when your idea of morning exercise is not using the tv remote control, or using "tabo" instead of shower,you know that time will come when you will just have to pay for being in poor shape.

i guess you have experienced times when co-workers and family members ask you why you climb mountains. The classic reply would always be:Because it's there. Just when you think you got off with borrowed wit, comes along a follow-up question of:"So, what do you do or what happens to you when you get to the top?" Like some sarcastic question. i would usually reply with,"well, just being there." Not only is this grammatically unsound , it's also pretentious wisecracking. but what could i do with such onslaught of mock inquiries. unless they've experienced the challenge of a whole day hike,of limited provisions, of conquering personal limitations; unless they've experienced the beauty of sunrise atop a mountain, took the clean air of the forest when your gasping for breath,or bonding with co-hikers, they will never ever understand what you're talking about.

if you're not spiritual, you will be when you climb mountains.because it is in God's creations that He manifests Himself.Moses and the prophets climbed mountains to talk to God, and so did Christ. we climb mountains and we have our own reasons for doing so. But i guess when you commune with nature you also get in touch with your innerself.even when you're all rowdy i believe there are few seconds when you just ran out of words and just sit and stare and think.so i'll be a little preachy here and say that if you don't experience this now, maybe you've forgotten how it all felt in your first few climbs.how it was when all about you are awe, wonder, and amazement.{right now, i feel redundant}But kidding aside, sometimes all we think about now is just getting to the top, beating our own personal time record,hurdling obstacles, eliminating hassles along the way,becoming more efficient after every climb. maybe we forgot to stop and smell the flowers, forgot about discovering new things along the way.There is a zen saying: You don't cross a river twice. There is always something new in the river, the water that ran minutes ago is not the same that flows this very moment. We might want to think about this every so often, even in our ordinary urban jungle lives.

When i mentioned about God's creations, i also refer to creatures: who are your co-hikers. It is in the mountains that you're going back to basics, no electricity, no cable tv,no internet,no convenience store, etc. all you have is your company. You want something, learn how to beg. you want to interact, better learn how to converse.you want to know, learn how to listen.Up there, they are your protectors,your best friends and your providers. i mean, one wrong move, one careless nudge and you're orthopedic case. you rely on them and they rely on you. i don't know about the others but the kind of bonding with co-climbers goes a little deeper than most encounters in like a bar or a party.i was lucky to be in a company of great friends,who previous to a hike i had not known from adam. when i look at the pictures, it never fails to make me smile. down memory lane, you tend to re-experience the joy and wonder of those times and places when you got to be closest to heaven than you could ever be, i mean here in the literal and figurative sense. Allow me to share a popular quote which pretty much sums up what i was trying to convey:

"I went to the woods because i wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put out all that was not life. And not, when i came to die, discover that i had not lived."