harley_frog's Journal: The World is Too Much With Us

This is my first journal entry and I have no idea who is even going to bother to read this. Ironically, I'm writing this entry just before going on a weeklong vacation to Sequoia National Park with my fiancée. The fact I'll be spending days on end away from technology (not even a cell phone) is reason to pause and reflect where we are in life.

I admit, I enjoy technology, otherwise why would I be working as an Automation Librarian? But, I do have boundries in place. I am probably one of the few remaining people in American who refuses to own a cell phone. I don't even have a computer at home. My fiancée, however, has both. The closest things I have to a computer are my Palm Pilot and my Playstation. And I like it that way. I spend forty hours a week working with computers, printers, software, and networks, not to mention trying to keep up with the changing technologies, that I need to seperate my work life from my personal life.

To that end, I have my Harley (yes, I actually own a Harley, not just a t-shirt,) which is my magic carpet ride from the chaos that is the real world and into a Zen-like state of just being. And now, with my new fiancée, I am exploring a whole new world of peace and solitude: hiking and backpacking. I'm dusting off my skills in compass and map reading, slinging on a backpack, and going out to see sights that few people ever see in their lifetime. It's also a journey to me.

I am a self-proclaimed geek. Always have been. But that doesn't preclude me from also enjoying the peace and serenity of the outdoors. It is my way of putting things into perspective and seeking a higher state of being.

I close now with William Wordsworth's poem, from which this journal entry is named.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.---Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn.