Me, myself and I - finding the real you.

Me

I must admit that it is a bit fun to have people call me Indiana Jones because I'm a Harrison Ford fan, but it's just my Canadian made Tilly mountain hat.  Now days people think that any fedora style hat is either a cowboy hat or Indiana Jones which is totally not true. As you can see in the picture, that's really where my similarity to Mr. Ford ends. Indiana Jones doesn't have a beard, ear-ring or pony tail. LOL!

The other day I read a statement by David Bowie. He said, "Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been."

Now you need to know that I have been working on this blog and trying to get it going in the direction I want to go and say what I want it to say for months! Here, in one sentence, Bowie identifies my hypothesis - or at least one of them. It is what I needed to get me started.

Myself

Over the past 70 years there have been many times that I looked in the mirror and wondered about the real identity of the man looking back. At first I thought it was a silly experience. I knew exactly who I was. Suddenly, one day I was retired, old and alone and had both the time and inclination to revisit that ultimate question. "Who the hell am I?" Was I ever in for a shock! I really was one of those fantasies I had as a young man which I shook off as sheer fantasy. At that time the me that had the fantasy was convinced that what I perceived as the fantasy me could not be who I am, was, should have been or should be. I knew that I had to grow up and face reality. (What the %#@# is reality?)

and I

I don't know about you, but for about 66 plus years of my life I knew exactly who I was . . . I had all sort of people telling me on a daily basis - family, school, religion, society and peers, for starters. My parents were intellectuals so I knew that I was going to college and probably end up with a doctor's degree. That was a foregone conclusion and is exactly what happened. My schools knew that my parents were college professors so I was the son of college professors which meant that I would make As, get my assignments done on time and behave in school. Well, I didn't make all As but I fulfilled the rest of the expectation because that's who I was or am or whatever. I believed them. Why should I think outside my given parameters? My peers had me pegged as a weakling nerd because of me being who my parents and school told me I was, and so I accepted the role of weakling nerd. It had to be true because I accepted that what my parents and school had told me must be true and everyone like me was a weakling and a nerd. After all I loved classical music, I read Dostoyevsky, and thought everyone had the Harvard Classics in their home. (Actually, even after discovering who I am I do still love classical music, academic research and reading.) I will avoid getting caught up in trying to express my feelings about the baggage religion loaded me down with because that could take a volume or so alone.

By 27 years old I knew exactly who I was and how I was suppose to act.  If I didn't remember, there was a family (a wife and four children), work (geriatrics), career, title (Doctor) and a religion to remind me. My wife, now deceased for five years, would have supported me being anything I wanted but I looked at our children and realized that my responsibility defined me. I'm not complaining and I would not trade them for anything, but society had me believing that I could not be anything other than I had already been assigned without jeopardizing my family. No way! (emphasis on "society had me believing...") I could see no other option - probably because I had been raised to see no other option - and so I became the consummate Dr. Vance in the way I dressed and behaved.

My Father finished his PhD in history with a specialty in the US Constitution at a time when the US Department of State was heavily recruiting historians like him for diplomatic duty. He turned it down because it was too risky for his family. He did have a good career and retired as a highly respected full professor, but what might he have done? What phenomenal experiences and adventures did he forego in the name of our safety? Looking back I did the same thing. I took a few more risks but basically I accepted my definition.

Pamela and I were attending a Glacier National Park Volunteer Associates meeting. One of the things our organization does is sponsor a back country ranger internship. The ranger who was second in command of the park told us that he had been one of our interns many years ago. He was a pre-med student. He never made it to medical school and he had no regrets. 

While I was everything that everyone wanted me to be ... or told me I was ... there was a side to me that I loved but never thought it was more than a passing fancy of childhood. Few people know that part of my life. When we moved to Meadville, PA in 1957 one of our neighbors was a man who lived for the out-of-doors and Explorer Scouts. His name was David. I became a part of David's very small group and enjoyed countless adventures. The reason that our group was so small was because we did not do things the way others did them. For example, we did not go to a camping jamboree loaded down with tens, cots, sleeping bags, food, etc., as did other scouting groups. We would show up with our personal backpacks packed with survival kits, first aid kits, a change of clothes, water and maybe a couple of snacks. We would go off to the side and build shelters with knives, start fires with flint and steel, and eat roots, berries or other edibles we could find in the woods. We took canoe trips down streams and rivers. One November, while the snow was flying, we took a canoe trip down the French Creek, a river that leads into the Allegheny and ultimately into the Ohio. I loved nature, camping and spending times in the forest. Looking back, I realize that I was never happier. 

As a 15 year old I worked at a Boy Scout camp. Some other employees and I hiked home for our day off. That was about 40 miles.  We also hiked to the next state about 25 miles away just to say we did.  We had a "secret" club based upon our love of the wild. The initiation was to be led blindfolded into the woods and left for two days wearing nothing but moccasins and a loin cloth.  We had a knife and canteen of water.  Why did I think I was a weakling nerd?  Probably because I had been taught - perhaps brainwashed - that the weakling nerd was reality and time in the woods was just a lark. 

I dreamed of being the outdoors man but I had been taught who I am.  I had been taught that such nonsense is too risky, doesn't pay the bills, doesn't allow for a family, and doesn't fulfill the expectations set for me. And so I accepted "reality".  What did it take for me to learn who I really am?  

It is really sad that growing old must be the process by which one discovers the real them. Looking at my own story, I really want to cry.  I want to cry not because my story is sad but because, learning who I am, I realized what I had missed. 

I became a runner and ran my first race the day before my 63rd birthday.  My grandson had wanted to run a race at Disney. His Father couldn't run with him because he had to have a knee replacement. His Mother couldn't run with him because she was running her own race. His sister couldn't run because she was in college. His Grandmother was disabled, so that left his Grandfather - me - who,  by this time, had horrible arthritis.  I fell in love with running and did a bunch of marathons and half-marathons that first year.

When my wife died I found myself old and alone. I turned to ultra-trail running. That's runs of over 40 miles.  I loved being in the woods and could run all day. I ran through the mountains of the Ouachita National Forest and diagonally across the Badlands National Park. I did one race that only 70% of those who start actually finish. I ran it three times and finished all three times. I started living in a 5x8 foot utility trailer when I went on my adventures. I loved it. Then I got a popup. I loved being in the wilderness and I loved the adventure and the challenge. Would you believe that I still hadn't quite made the connection with the dreams of my youth? 

I met Pamela a little more than three years after my wife had died. She too was a widow. It didn't take us long to realize that we are out of the same mold. We love the same things. Pamela was a triathlete before arthritis ended her career. We both love the wilderness.  We both love to run, hike, bike, kayak and scuba dive.  We ended up buying a 16 foot 35 year old vintage camper trailer and spending our time working as volunteers for the National Park Service.  We work as campground hosts and trail patrol at Glacier National Park in the wilderness of northwestern Montana. 

This will be our fourth season.  We hike trails, climb mountains, bike mountain roads, and kayak on remote wilderness lakes. I went scuba diving in Lake McDonald, a glacier lake where the water temperature at the surface was 40 degrees on July 5th.  Our work day is filled with helping experienced campers plan their adventure, teaching new visitors how to enjoy the wilderness, and patrolling trails and mountains to assure that humans have a good experience without harm to the environment or wildlife. 

It didn't take me long to realize that this was the real me.  What had taken so long? Was it really necessary for me to wait until I was retired to be who I am?  

I don't think it was necessary.  Don't get me wrong.  I say again, I had a good life. But how much more living could there have been if I had started out as who I really am?  How much more could I have contributed to the world?  If I had not had a wonderful, loving family and enjoyed being a psychotherapist I would be understandably really angry right now. 

What can we learn from my story?  Is it a common story?  

I believe that it is a very common story.  I believe that the first lesson is that there is no freedom to be if you conform to religion and society; i.e. the various facets of society, along with religion, will dictate who you are to be if you let them. For most people there is no choice or at least no choice of which they are aware.  I'm not proposing anti-social but non-conformity. I'm not proposing non-conformity as a negative reaction to society but non-conformity as being the unhampered search for the real self.  I'm talking about non-conformity as being the refusal to permit religion and society from limiting and/or dictating.  

There is only one person to whom it is important to be happy with who you are - YOU! 
Being non-conformist and/or being who you are does not assume or require that one acts contrary to society or in an inappropriate manner. Sadly religion and society try to convince us that that is not true. Religion and society prefer that we believe that doing anything contrary to the way they say is wrong and/or inappropriate. They prefer that we   act and become what they say we are. They want us to believe that it is our only option. 

There are obvious problems with this. Many people are really not capable of such a search. They may not like religion and society dictating who they are but they do not have the means to go their own way. Others have neither the intellect nor the desire for such an undertaking and are perfectly happy having religion and society define themselves.  For those of us lucky enough to have the opportunity, means, intellect and desire finding ourselves should not be something we put off until we are at the end of our lives. The potential we discover could have profound benefits to more than ourselves. Who knows the potential of the real you. Could I have made a profound impact upon environmental policy or our wilderness had I become who I am now 50 years ago?  We'll never know. 

I must admit to being very happy that I discovered the real me and am now able to fulfill some of those dreams even if I did come close to waiting until it was too late.  Please, dear reader, don't make that mistake. Learn who you really are. It could change your life. And who knows, you may be the one whose saves humanity from itself.  

Russell E. Vance, III, PhD
27 March 2016