Ben Wiehl - Chosen Topic #1

I have to admit that after taking this class and spending so much time studying the Appalachian Trail and its relation to pilgrimages and authentic experiences, it really makes me want to spend some time hiking on it. I could see myself taking some time off after college to do so, as I feel like my life may need some sort of authentic experience that I have yet to find. This may be because most of my free time is constrained by the daily anxieties of school and work. Having just come to the end of my second year in college, I still have yet to get far enough in depth in my major to be of much of an interest to me. These first two years have been a sort of high-school like experience with more freedom. Most of the work seems to be busy work and not anything of any substantial depth. This has made my experience sort of mundane -- and I suppose that I am seeking an escape from such. I have never tried extended periods of hiking, especially distances as long as a thru-hike on the Appalchian trail. I feel that this would be the sort of overwhelming new experience that Tom Wolfe was talking about in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, one that is authentic and gives you a whole new outlook on the meaning of life. Since I have never really been a religous individual, although I was raised so at the beginning of my life, I feel like this sort of adventure could substitute for religion to satisfy the unconcious and innate urge of humans beings to experience something not available to them through the everyday means of life.