Chasing Ideals

Some of you who have had the disturbing pleasure to view the movie by that title may understand this post better. This was by no means the first movie I have seen of its type but this made an impact on me to watch more than others for some reason. In my heart I was very much disturbed by the awful awful (there's two for a reason) reality portrayed in this movie. Close to the end I decided that I had no desire to see the final portion as what I had seen already was so difficult to watch that I felt I needed no ending. The plot contains one man who is trying desperately to live as a Christian but has a severely warped view of how to do this. In the middle of the movie he kills a man and two children in a hit and run and his whole life and beliefs are shattered by the event. Another main character is the wife and mother of those killed and she turns to drugs and an extremely selfish existence to deal with her loss. She is later joined in a relationship with another character who is also as selfish a person as there is at least in my opinion. I left out some detail but realized in writing that some may now be on edge to view this movie. It was a movie that tried to display all of the horror of grief and selfishness and religion and death. I had to ask myself why I was viewing this movie, how could I possibly benefit from being exposed to such horror. I also realized that so many time in my life I have opened my mind to similar movies and allowed my mind to be seared by the awful realities of the movies and television I have viewed. In the past I have watched terrible violence and death in movies and video games and in the "news" and I have seen that no longer do my emotions even begin to react to what I am seeing.

I thought before I fell asleep that I must change this. For myself and for those I love I want to be like the father in "Life is Beautiful" who shielded his son from the horror of the Holocaust. He did not want his son to be scarred by the awful reality of the concentration camp and so he did all he could to hide it. I don't understand why we have a fascination in society today with exposing all of the gruesome aspects of life even to children who emotionally could not be ready for it. Why is it that we choose to expose ourselves to these things? could we name one benefit from it? I at least right now can see nothing of benefit, only harm and want to make great effort in the future to protect what is left of my emotional response to the harshness of this world.

Success is mine at last. I have finally added some new pictures to Lovable Quirks. The photos from Lithuania start with my time at the camp with the Brazilians and the trips we took to the surrounding area. The last few rows of photos are from my journeying out of Lithuania. The copious amount of cross pictures were taken at the "Hill of Crosses" located in the center of Lithuania. The crosses were placed to memorialize the deaths and imprisonments of thousands of Lithuanians in the last century. At one point the occupying Russians bulldozed the site during the communist years but it was slowly recreated by the people of the country. The last few pictures of that album are to give some small idea of the Lithuanian landscape. The majority is flat landscape dotted sparsely with old farmhouses and small villages. In the Krakow album I have one picture of Elzbieta by herself and another with her and her husband Damien. There may have been more but I was quickly aware that they had no desire to be photographed often.

The most recent album chronologically speaking is of my time here in Nowy Sanz and of the wonderful weekend I spend hiking in the Tatras. The first day at the Tatras, Sunday, myself and Marcin did about a six hour hike to the top of one of the peaks. I was surprised at my ability to do such a hike with ease despite how long it has been since I have done any serious hiking. I have chalked it up to the incredibly fresh air in the region and the 1/4 Polak blook flowing through the old veins. In the short time since my arrival last week Tuesday Marcin's English has improved by leaps and bounds and each day he remembers more and more that he learned in high school. The hike up gave us plenty of time to chat and made the journey seem altogether short. The following day, Monday, myself and Milka set out at about 8:30 and did not return until almost 8:30 in the evening. We did a much longer trek that included hiking along the tops of some of the larger mountains in the Polish Tatras. The hike along the tops was much more difficult partly because the whether during that part of our adventure was cold and raining. For most of that portion you must use chains and in some places ladders to be able to climb along. I was realizing in some of those moments that 12 years ago I probably would have soiled myself considering the height we were climbing at and the difficulty of some areas of the climb. I was never one for ladders and at one point in this climb was on a ladder with only a sheer drop beneath me. As a result of the weather we did not hike as far along the tops as we might have otherwise. We were both soaked with the rain and did not dry for some time on the hike down. Unfortunately until last night I did not recover from getting so soaked. The minimal quantity of body fat I have allowed the chill from the rain to seep to my bones and for the last two days I felt a chill constantly but all is well today. I had a lot of fun that day chatting to Milka. She is an English teacher and I decided I would test her knowledge of old English terms and some old fashioned slang terms. It was a good excuse for me to use as many big words as I could think of. I am not sure if she appreciated a full day of this but I think that at least portions of our conversations were interesting for her. I am really glad that they went with me to explore the mountains as they knew much more about the area than I and chose hikes that are free from the masses of tourists that frequent this area of Poland.

The weather here seems to have come to an abrubt change over the last four days. At least here in Poland I think that Autumn may have reared its head. It began with the last day at the Tatras where by evening we were seeing are breath and when we returned to Nowy Sanz that night it wasn't much warmer here. For the last days it has been raining consistently and the temperatures are much lower. Now that I'm feeling better I'm thinking that Saturday will probably signal my time to vamoose. I have had a wonderful time here being able to just relax and spend time with Marcin and Milka in a very beautiful part of Poland. Enjoy the pics. Love to all. Your world traveler and now hiking enthusiast (maybe not quite yet)