I finished reading Louise Dickinson Rich's "We Took to the Woods" the other night.

The first half of the book or so is mostly an account of how their lives worked, of things she had seen and done out in the woods (including giving birth to their son Rufus).

The second half (or so) is a series of chapters answering questions she knows people have about life in the woods -- "Don't you get bored?" "Aren't you afraid?" (Her answer to that last being, the biggest threat to you in the woods is yourself - inattention or over-daring caused far more injuries than wayward bears do)

The last chapter, though, raises a couple of interesting philosophical (if I may call them that) points that I think have broader application.

The first is, she observes, that no one asks her the question "Is it worth while?" However, she notes, she asks HERSELF that question occasionally, when the stove acts up, or it's midsummer and the ice is gone and she'd almost sell her soul for a glass of ice water, or her son Rufus returns from going to observe a lumber camp with a new store of dirty words he's happy to share. But then again, she notes, a lot of the time she doesn't even THINK of the question:

"It amounts to this. "Is it worth-while to live like this?" is a question I never ask myself under fair conditions. I ask it only when exasperation or discomfort or exhaustion pre-determine No as an answer...Happy people aren't given to soul-searching, I find. Revolt and reform, whether private or general, are always bred in misery and discontent..."

While I am not so sure about happy people never doing soul-searching, I do agree that it is at the times when I am most at the end of my rope that I find myself asking myself, "Why didn't I apply for that research post in Alaska?*" or "Why didn't I decide to go to library school instead and maybe wind up as a cataloguer who rarely has to deal with the Specialer Snowflakes of the world?"

(*there's actually more to it, which I am putting as an aside because I am going to use a rude word I normally NEVER use, but there is no other way to convey the joke I turned it into otherwise. It would have been measuring body temperatures of caribou. And I always assumed those were rectally taken...so I used to joke, occasionally, in grad school, as I was working on my doctorate (the caribou job would have come after my Master's) and teaching, and dealing with several very demanding students: "If I had gone to Alaska, I would have still been working with assholes, but at least not the kind that can talk back to you!" I still think that occasionally, when some of the Specialer Snowflakes I come into contact with get me down)

But I do think we have a predisposition to see the worst and assume the worst when we're already stretched to the limit. And when you're happy and engaged (she later talks about how she never even contemplates the concept of "worth-while" while attempting to land a large salmon, or while she is swimming, or while she gets to see deer drinking from a quiet forest pool.

I do know for myself, my "am I wasting my life at this?" questions tend to come up most in the semesters when I have a class containing several "difficult" personalities, or when research is going badly, or (as happened once) I got two different manuscripts rejected from two different journals in a single week.

And actually, I do think too much asking of "is it all worth-while?" or "Am I wasting my life at this?" - well, that way lies madness. Or at least deciding to watch Jerry Springer to convince yourself that AT LEAST you are better off than THOSE people.

****

A related point (really, it is) is when she speaks of freedom. She remarks that in the woods, she can be "herself," without feeling pressure to dress a certain way, or act a certain way. Money doesn't matter (well, above and beyond being able to buy necessities). Her identity is not based on all the foolish things that women's identities used to heavily be based on (and I suppose, in some circles, still are).

She describes it as "being free," but then notes (remember, she is writing in the middle of World War II):

"To define freedom, for which men and women and children are dying all over the world, in terms of indifference to clothes and social contacts and popular attitudes seems to trivial and irresponsible a thing to do that I am ashamed of it, as of a gross impertinence; but that is what living here adds up to, for me. I am free."

I have to admit, I enjoy some of that same freedom in academia. You can wear the same dang old sweatshirt you've worn for the past ten years and no one will say anything. You can disdain whatever is currently popular and it's just fine. You don't have to golf. (one of my brother's objections, to life in the corporate world: "You get a raise because you do good work but then you're expected to go out and spend it on a better set of golf clubs to impress your higher-ups with when you all go out golfing together." Needless to say, he didn't golf, and he didn't stay all that long in the corporate world)

She goes on:

"It adds up to more than that. All ordinary people like us, everywhere, are trying to find the same things. It makes no difference whether they are New Englanders or Texans or Malayans or Finns. They all want to be left alone to conduct their own private search for a personal peace, a reasonable security, a little love, a chance to attain happiness through achievement. It isn't much to want; but I never came anywhere near to getting most of those things until we took to the woods."

That's actually one of the better descriptions of "freedom" I've seen lately - being left alone to search for your own personal peace and a chance to attain happiness. Or at least, it's a definition that resonates with me.