A Vagabond for Beauty and Peace

As to when i shall visit civilization, it will not be soon. I think. I have not tired of the wilderness; rather i enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life l lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highways, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities.

 

Do you blame me then for staying here, where i feel that i belong and am one with the world around me? It is true that i miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom i can share the things that mean so much to me that i have learned to contain myself. It is enough that i am surrounded with beauty.

 

Even from you scant description, i know that i could not bear the routine and humdrum of the life that you are forced to lead. I don’t think i could ever settle down. I have known too much of the depths of life already and i would prefer anything to an anticlimax.

 

The above words are in the last letter ever received from Everett Ruess, to his brother, Waldo, dated November 11, 1934.

 

The mood created just shows how Everett or the likes of him like Christopher McCandless (see “Into the Wild” if you want to know what I am talking about) want to at some point get away from humanity and its dark side, away from all what we so called civilized world. “Civilized?” is what they would question.

 

Both Everett and Christopher found relief in an escaped adventure into the wild, exploring the world without humanity, without its filthy thoughts, and its so called necessities for living, without possessions, and without a sense of responsibility to the fellowmen who try to force you to live with the rules of society, and found peace in the harshest, coldest, wildest, although it led them both to their death.

 

This snap was clicked during a boat trip to Butterfly island, and Monkey island. My friend asked the boatman why its called butterfly Island and pat came the reply.. “Kabhi Kabhi ek, doh butterfly dikhta hai” (“sometimes we see 1-2 butterflies”).

 

Metadata: 1/80 sec at f/7.1, 55mm, ISO 200