Open thread: Finding balance between extremes

And a wilderness poem

Happy Friday!

I’m back with an open thread that I’d like to kick off with a poem. I’m prone to wordy preambles, so I’ll let the poem speak for itself to start. I’m grateful to The Hudson Review for publishing this piece in 2006.

Mean

Cutting brush along a mountain trail, 
he fights two willful extremes—one desperate 
to trim back the whole hillside, shearing the bank 

straight up to the peak—the other longing 
to let the trail die, overgrowth 
smoothing the crease in the grey mountain’s brow.

How fragile the middle space 
where he clears a footpath for a time,
this labor worth most to himself,

each sweep of an arm purging dust
from his blood, and the hearth at his core
clean enough for a household of one.

How does this poem land with you?

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As I’ve shared in a recent post on simplicity, I’ve been attending a Quaker meeting for a few months now. The traditional Quaker service begins with an hour of shared silence, and holding that space with others has been both restorative and challenging. I’ve never practiced meditation in any structured way, so I’m making it up as I go, sometimes focusing on breathing, other times anchoring into a thought about my children, sometimes just trying not to fall asleep after a long morning run.

In many ways, this contemplative practice has drawn me back to childhood, to the daydreaming that often made monotonous chores tolerable. There are no rules at a Quaker meeting — my thoughts can wander wherever they like. I’m never doing it wrong. I like that.

I felt a similar freedom during my work as a wilderness ranger. I’d take a crew out for ten days at a time — what we called a “hitch” — and we’d clear 40-60 miles of trail, looping back to the cabin where our supplies were delivered by mule. If we were ahead of schedule cutting fallen trees from the path, we’d work on clearing brush or cleaning waterbars (drainage structures for steeper slopes). My crewmates sometimes chafed against the work, but I enjoyed settling into the rhythm of the crosscut saw. And it was a pleasure to open a brushy trail with my shears, letting my thoughts wander until they settled on an image or metaphor.

I remember the day when this particular poem found me. My crew was clearing the Big Rock Trail, which runs along the high country in the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness, and we hit a patch that was so brushed in that we had to swim through it. We pressed on, made camp, and backtracked the next morning to open the route.

It was a sunny August day with just enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitos and horseflies away. Pruning brush is not terribly fun. It requires bending down to clip the stems near the ground, which takes a toll on your back. Then you have to stack the branches neatly along the trail to avoid an eyesore. But it’s one of those jobs where you see immediate impact, which I find rewarding.

Most days I approached trail work the way I do my writing craft, holding the hiker or horseback rider in my thoughts, anticipating and removing the annoyances that they might encounter, in hopes that they might be lost in thoughts of their own while traveling the route, not distracted by what I’d left undone. I preferred that my work remain invisible to most passersby. But I also liked the thought that those who knew the art of trail work would see the quality of mine.

It struck me then that meaningful work was not wholly an act of service, nor was it the indulgence of private passions. Work shouldn’t demand extreme sacrifice — it should be an expression of integrity that generates its own purpose, that opens a path into the future. Teaching once represented that confluence of service and idealism for me. Writing and coaching now do the same. Yet there is so much work to be done that is totalizing in one of those ways, requiring too much self-denial or too much self-indulgence.

The Big Rock Trail taught me that the goal isn’t finding work that you unequivocally love, so you never have to work a day in your life. It’s finding a balance between the private passion and the public good. A middle space with just enough of both to sustain you and your values. It’s possible that my work transitions are extra difficult because I have known real balance in my life. I enjoyed working on wilderness trails because it wasn’t pure recreation — I was sweating to make recreation possible for others, and that’s where I found real purpose, not in blissing out at a scenic overlook. Not many jobs find that sweet spot. But I have to believe there are some of them left.

Questions:

• How do you find that balance in your work life, so that you’re not negotiating work and life as separate and opposing commitments, but finding the right balance in the work itself? What complicates this process for you?

• How do you navigate the totalizing extremes that seem so central to capitalism and to American life? I’m thinking here of some content creators that I follow, the relentless grind of their feeds, even through the weekend, as well as sobering reports from job seekers, who say that it takes 200+ applications to find a role. Why do so many work pathways seem like all-or-nothing propositions?

• Do you find yourself torn between similarly unyielding extremes in your personal life? Trying to parent like you have no job, for instance, or gardening like you must outshine all other gardeners?

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Hop over to

Inner Life

later today for new writing by

Carol Roh Spaulding

, whose prizewinning fiction collection I featured two weeks ago. I’ll be back Tuesday to share a conversation with Jennifer Askey, fellow recovering academic and career coach, about her journey from academe to entrepreneurship.

Take care, friends!

Josh