The Will to Disobey

June 8, 2020 5 Comments

“Vorsicht, Kindchen, Vorsicht!” (Careful, kiddo, careful…) was a constant refrain in the household of my childhood, outnumbering even the “Straighten your back!” and “Darling, would you fetch me my cigarettes….”invocations.

Vorsicht – care, caution, precaution, restraint – built an invisible fence around a child’s desire and need to explore, to risk. For my war-traumatized parents, danger (understandably) lurked in shadows and around every imaginable corner. “Don’t jump off that swing, don’t race your bike, don’t hitchhike, don’t spend time to travel abroad instead of proceeding straight to your clerkship,” the variations were endless. Physical danger, psychological danger, danger to the vision of an unencumbered life in a straight line from school to university to career to marriage to happily ever after. Anticipatory fear was literally a cloud forming a cage.

Steep Creek Falls

Except that we escaped through the invisible bars, at every possible turn, skimmed knees, black&blues, twisted ankles, tropical diseases be damned. I never felt more alive than when climbing prohibited trees as a kid, when sleeping rough on the beaches of Morocco in the early 70s, or hunting for orchids in the temperate rainforests of Venezuela. In fact, lovingly imposed constraint continually incited the opposite: a yearning for risk taking, a struggle with conformity, a will to disobey.

Alaskan Bunch Berries
Anemones
Bead Lilies
Avalanche Lilies
AvalancheLilies
Wind Flowers
Bear Grass

All this is on my mind because in some miniature ways I still thrive on adventure, even when it is now limited to scrambling up and down a pile of rocks on an otherwise moderate, although insanely beautiful hike.

Luckily someone lend me gloves…
The top

No more solo hiking for me, like last year in New Mexico. Photographs today are from an outing last week where two kind souls invited me sight-unseen (regarding my physical condition) to explore with them a tiny slice of the Pacific Crest Trail (Rock Creek Pass). Am I ever grateful they took me with them – Charlie and Dennis, I owe you!

Wildflowers abounded, water rushed down the outcrops, lichen glowed in the diffuse light, snakes saw no reason to scurry away, rock wrens serenaded us and old growth forest calmed the soul along the way.

*

Risk taking, of course, also figures in the larger picture of deciding how to approach life while the country re-opens. We are no longer talking about thrill seeking, but a real and present danger to our lives, if we risk infection with Covid-19.

Any decision has to be based on an assessment of the probabilities of both the danger levels in situations we might seek out or avoid and our own specific vulnerabilities. Outside differs from inside, crowdedness differs from emptiness, duration of encounter with others is a huge factor, as is the presence or absence of masks. Your age and your health status has to be part of the equation.

Indian Paint Brush
Penstemon
Balsam Root (I think)

For me, there is also the question of why. It is not just going to be what am I doing, but why am I doing it? What are the reasons that justify for me to take risks? Do I go back to work, because I and my family could not survive otherwise? Am I truly needed for something, or am I too compliant to simply refuse? Am I staying away from the outside world because I let irrational fear rule me or because I legitimately cannot afford to risk infection? Is there such inherent meaning to be part of a community, or not being idle, that it justifies tolerating moderate risk at my work or the market place? Has fear become a mistress that we need to find the will to disobey?

Bleeding Hearts at the Bottum
Pioneer Violet
Arnika

The same is true for the larger question of risk and civic participation, when you decide the time has come to protest even in the face of radicalized police- and state action, perpetuation of historical injustice.

It is even a question when you contemplate actions often associated with protests, rioting and looting. Asking ourselves why people are doing that might provide surprising insights. One of the best explantations, both in content and rhetorical skill, that I have come across is in the attached short video. Note I have not linked to any other reading today, just so you have time to listen to a powerful voice. (Bonus: you will never play Monopoly again….)

And for music today one of the best choirs in the country with a familiar encouragement:We are not AFRAID today! Let that guide us, within reason.

friderikeheuer@gmail.com

5 Comments

  1. Reply

    Steve T.

    June 8, 2020

    Oh Friderike, fabulous. I think this nation just might survive, and grow, from all of these tribulations. And the Aeolians – I wept.

  2. Reply

    Dennis

    June 8, 2020

    Rike, it was so nice to share the hike with you. Loved your blog. Thanks for the two videos within it.

  3. Reply

    Martha Ullman West

    June 8, 2020

    Absolutely gorgeous photographs and as it happens, all day yesterday “We Shall Overcome” was playing in my brain, at a rather less lugubrious tempo, however than this excellent choir was using. Thank you Friderike; tough times. Risky times. Consciously risky times, for all times are inherently risky, like life itself.

  4. Reply

    DEB MEYER

    June 8, 2020

    POWERFUL MESSAGE AND A LOT TO THINK ABOUT! THANK YOU!

  5. Reply

    Sara Lee

    June 8, 2020

    This is a magnificent posting! I shall save it so that I can walk among the wildflowers and be on the mountain paths whenever I wish. We are all the beneficiaries of your lifelong effort to tell your parents what’s what….

    And yes, the “Monopoly” woman was powerful! Appropriately so.

    I had never before heard of either the Aeolian Chorus or Oakland University. I hope the Chorus did not object to my singing along with their deeply moving performance.

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