Caleb's Hike...

The other day I was trying to answer the unanswerable. The trail became an analogy in order to simplify the difference between predestination and free choice. It seemed to me that we are all hikers, the white blazes are guided experiences, and the trail is a path through life. As I walked from blaze to blaze I grew determined to characterize myself. I quickly became discouraged with the thought of being a fated hiker. I hoped I was more than a routine hiker following a schedule of blazes. The idea seemed to drain my credibility of overcoming struggle or my escalation in muse. The idea of free choice helped explain my personal growth, but failed to explain why my feet constantly diverged to a wrong path. In addition I couldn’t shake the uncomfortable idea of others. These were determined hikers who, for whatever reason, were doomed to drop off the trail. I could only describe it as a blessing that I had walked for three months and 1300 miles without injury, financial issues, or alternate world conflict. The answer seemed obvious that this journey from Georgia to Maine is constructed by a combination of both a fated foot and a free mind. The pride in my conclusion quickly faded and I became disheartened when I tried to substitute this ending back into the reverse of my analogy. For if we were all hikers then its seems we would all be hiking guided by experiences, the blazes, to our destination. But life isn’t like this. Life seems to be a bit more complex. In reflection to this new idea I arrived to a new conclusion, and smiled at my answer to the unanswerable. The trail isn’t life.