Times like these I am reminded of the Duke in "3 Godfathers" when it's down to just him and the baby and he's struggling to keep going, and he can hear the voices of the dead friends he left behind goading him on.

I am also reminded of the scene from Eddie Murphy's "Holy Man", where he is coaching a man through an imagined plane crash. In the scene, he has the man focus on his family, how much he is loved, and how well he's done taking care of them, knowing they will be okay without him now.

Often we make a lot more out of a seemingly bad situation than it really is. I prefer to look at any given event in my life as an opportunity; a chance to experience another adventure. It's okay to be scared at times. Heck, that's half the fun and thrill of the big roller coaster rides. But we need to learn that what scares us doesn't need to overwelm our reasoning. Even the unkown can be faced with courage. After all, death brings us all to the great unknown in the end, so it is always a part of our existence. In this day and age, most of us get quite disconnected from that reality, which I think is what makes it so hard for us to cope with more trivial adversities.

Knowing that despite your best efforts you are gonna die someday is a pretty darned good slap in the face with the gauntlet of reality.

I can't be the only one here who really appreciates reading a little benjammin first thing in the am. Good stuff, dead on, well put, an inspiration, and thanks for writing it!

Going back to dweste's "Mysterious Guide", this is a common but unexplained occurance:
Study: The Third Man

-Blast

Well, it's awful nice to be appreciated, thanks. I like to think that with the thousands of posts I've put up here over the years, at least some morsels are worthy.

to quote one of my heros, "Just doing what I can with what I've got."

A healthy perspective seems to persistently be one of the most important things we have to rely on for our survival, in just about all the situations we might find ourselves in.

I have to restate what Lono said; Ben I appreciate your well thought out posts, they make me think and self examine.
It is what my hunting partner calls "the voice of reason".

A while ago your tag line was a quote from Martha Washington;
"I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances".

I related to it so much that I printed and posted it on our bulletin board at our youth group, it helps explain different situations and personalities.

Thanks,

Mike

I was assisted first by one of the course mentors / instructors who got me from wherever I was in the forest to a road, and on the road I was "passed" to a friend who led me to the drum.

Some of you folks must have done the blindfolded-walk-to-the-drum thing, did you develop any strategy to keep on time and on course?

I am going to be doing another drum walk soon blindfolded but at night, in the rain, and downhill through a different area of mixed pine, oak, and madrone. Looking for coaching.

Thanks.

I have never done this particular exercise, but counting paces is a surprisingly accurate way of tracking distance. I can achieve less than 10% error over distances of a kilometer or more, which is way better than my estimates. Too bad you can't use a GPS since they are still more accurate.

Lay out 100 feet on level ground, walk it several times, and do the math to get your average pace (left foot to left foot).

There are actually formulae for accounting for steeply sloping ground. I believe you drop paces descending and add paces ascending, but I have never used them.

I have my pace count down and use it several times a week. I use a football field about once a year to confirm my walking pace count and my running pace count. Which by the way is 62 and 41 respectively.

I have an app on my iPhone for running that I have been using to do active confirmation on distance across parking lots, parks, etc.

Knowing your pace count is IMHO a necessity.

I have never done it. I don't quite understand it. I've spend some time in various darkrooms over the years, with and without a safelight, and the important thing with all of them was to have a clear floor and to know where everything was. If I were stuck somewhere where I had no light, I'd most likely just stay put.

Is this one of those exercises where you're put in an artificial state of weakness to learn to depend on others and improve your "teambuilding skills"? Have to say I've never understood the point of that either, except as a conditioning mechanism.

I would suggest a helmet of some sort, a walking staff, and one of those thermal game finders that makes a tone depending on the heat of the object you point it at.

I don't mean to be negative, I just truly don't understand the point.