I have Mondays off now and can go backpacking

My boss has cut everybody's hours in the office by at least 20%. I elected to do that by taking one day off each week. Supposedly this is temporary. I should be bummed that the company is in such dire straights or that I will be making less money but the only thing on my mind is that I have more time for backpacking.

This weekend we are planning to join the Sierra Club hike to Santa Paula Peak. This is a strenuous and somewhat crazy hike that starts out as a creek rock-hopping adventure, goes up to a camp that has the biggest picnic table I've ever seen, then goes to Santa Paula Peak and down. I think it's a car shuttle. The Man and I are a little bit worried about the creek part since the creeks were raging just a week ago. Hopefully they'll be reduce, but we are worried we'll be wading most of the way. I'm going to hope for the best.

This hike is on Saturday. But now with my extra day off, I still have Sunday and Monday to do a backpack. So I was thinking of hiking up Chorro Grande or maybe Hell's Half Acre. I haven't decided.

Meanwhile, on the same day the boss said we all had to cut our hours, a recruiter contacted me wanting to set me up with an interview at some company. Perhaps I will get a new job. A full-time job with benefits. On the one hand, I would be bummed to lose all my nice time off that I've used to take classes, make shoes and do day hikes, but on the other hand, I would make a lot more money and then I could save it all up and quit working forever. So part of me is resigned to setting aside life to work for a while.

The love of money is the root of all evil

The love of money is the root of all evil.

	Trees are money
	Rocks and mountains are money
	Shark fins are money...
	... but not sharks.
	Plastic is money. Figuring out how to dispose of it is not.
	Water is money when it's like this...
	But not so much when it looks like this.
	Your attention is money. Thinking, experiencing and being is not.

My thoughts go round and round

I've been feeling lately like it's time to get a new job. I need a job with better pay and higher quality, more professional work. Something to feel proud of.

But then I remember that The Man was thinking of hiking the PCT next year and I think I should wait until after the hike. I don't want to find a really good job just to quit a year later. And then I start thinking what if he doesn't hike next year and I blow a whole year working at my low-budget job when I could have earned twice as much money for a year?

And then I start thinking about how The Man tends to be more talk than action and I really am wasting a year waiting for the inevitable let-down and that there's no way we'll ever attempt a thru-hike and I should just go get a job now.

And then I start thinking about how boring and meaningless my life seems going to work every day, listening to the TV blaring all night and I wonder if I could make a real commitment to a high-paying career-type job now that I know there's more life out there than this. Maybe I should just stick to what I'm doing now. At least I have time during the day to pursue other interests.

But my interests cause difficulties at home because I'm not conventional enough. I just feel sometimes that from all angles everything external in this modern world seems to hate who I am, and that I'm a square peg and who on earth would hire someone like me anyway?

So then I wonder why would I even want a better, more highly-skilled job when the world is mean and hates me. What I really want is to go hiking where nature is alive with love and beauty and kindness and with real pain that hurts in the body but not in the psyche.

But if I could do the high-pay job for a few years I could save enough money to quit and go hiking for the rest of my life. Maybe hiking on the weekends is enough to get by for a few years. Maybe it's time for a real job.

And then the cycle of my thoughts start all over again.