reasons why
In 2017 I bought a Sprinter van with the intention of traveling around the country; I had never seen the high desert, the dramatic west coast, the moody, damp pacific northwest. At that time van life was a budding millennial idea repurposed from the sepia-toned Volkswagen travels of the 1960s, it wasn’t the nationally widespread obsession it has become today. I don’t say this to sound overly original, but rather to reflect on why I bought the van. I was mourning the loss of a serious relationship. In that partnership he bought a van and then we began to fix it up for cross country travels. When the relationship ended, I lost the kindest partner I’ve ever had, and the van. It wasn’t until a year later that I realized I didn’t need a partner, it was something I could do myself.
Proving to myself that I could complete a giant, difficult, complex conversion process on my own was my reason. That’s all I knew at the time. I used the same reason to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. When I was thru-hiking the people often asked ‘why?’. The simplest answer I found, and the truest, was this: ‘I want to and my desire to do it is enough’.
Desires motivate us, and fuel our dreams. Wanting to do something can be whimsical: there isn’t much of a reason beyond the moment. Or, a desire can be dangerous: compulsions that feel necessary often signal a lack of reasoning and control. Is something we want ever really a need?
I had lost control of my life when I decided to buy the van and then hike, so it did feel necessary. At that time there was nothing else that I wanted to do with my life. Yet, I did not need to hike. I did not need to buy a retired electrician’s van. What I did need to do was discover the reason why I felt the desire to hike, and own an unwieldy vehicle. That kind of reason could only be found in the act itself. This form of desire is more closely related to curiosity than satiation.
What is at the end of a long walk? What lies beyond the horizon line?
Knowing the answers to those questions creates a goal: walking over 2,000 miles, driving to a national park. Goals are not reasons. Completing something is not why you do it, completion is a point to reach, an accomplishment to note, a box to check. Attaining a goal is only a moment in time; it’s a finish line, a salary raise, a degree. The reason why you are chasing the goal is what fuels the journey. Reasons emerge, develop, expand and contract to pinpoints that prick your heart and mind.
A goal will not be the ultimate reason, “just because” isn’t truly a reason why you are doing something—it merely means that you aren’t sure of anything beyond your initial desire. I guess what I’m saying is, if doing something just to do it is how you answer the question ‘why’, then you are absolutely going to find the real reason along the way.
Before I left New Hampshire to drive westward, I handpicked the books I wanted to take along. The first one I pulled off the shelf was a large book on the National Parks of America. My dad gave me the book as a Christmas present a decade ago. The pages are full of colorful landscape photographs, interviews with biologists and anthropologists, and essays about the history of the parky system. I have no memory of mentioning a specific desire to see the national parks to my dad, but I must have. I do know that I’ve always wanted to explore, and each trip is a chance to figure out why.
