On the trail, my granola bar slapping, plastic crunching, in my pocket. Branches and leaves hanging over the trail, reaching out to touch my shins. One longer step over areek, crisscrossing the trail. Fallen pine cones, tumbled rocks, broken twigs on the trail. Steps made of logs Up and up in elevation, steep. Cobwebs, stuck to my arms and legs. Like this trail hasn’t been walked in a while. Breathing heavy between words, holding my phone and speaking to it. Trunks cut in half by the rangers. Some broken up, crumbled, their red, woody innards spilling out.

The meditation of the trail. Step, step, step, step.Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. Fallen pine needles. Exposed rocks and roots. Dusty shadows of trunks. Boughs, branches, leaves above, shaking only slightly. The roar of the river far away. The wind and the leaves rustling. The footprints of those still ahead. Stepping straight forward, for the most part. No decisions necessary, except for step, step, step. Left, right, left. The water in the bottle in my left hand, sloshing. The sound of the sand shifting beneath my shoes, making footprints of my own. Meditation made easy by the singularity of the path, only one direction to go—forward and up. Step, step, step is the only decision. Stopping only when a chipmunk in the trail found some food, picked up the food in its paws, and hopped up the rocks beside the trail to sit back on its haunches and munch.

It’s more sustainable to do what you love and to be yourself. If you do something that you don’t love, or that you don’t identify with, you might be able to get along doing it for a while, to make money, to impress somebody, or to survive. But eventually, you’ll get tired of it. Because what you actually love will be calling you and your true identity will be pulling you away.

The energy it takes to resist these other callings will take away from the energy that you can put in to what you’re pretending to love or who you’re pretending to be. Whereas when you do what you love or be yourself, though it might not be lucrative, successful, or impressive in the beginning, you at least don’t have to worry about carrying on because you are doing the most natural thing—pursuing your passions, being who you are, which is just as natural as eating when you are hungry or drinking when you’re thirsty. You will always eat so long as you live. You will always drink too.

Then, eventually, success will be inevitable. I don’t know if I can explain why success is inevitable.

I just believe it. Maybe it’s just a principle of business, of marketing. Maybe because of consistency. You build up your brand. You work your way into a niche. And people have enough time to realize who you are and what you’re about and what you create. And they can tell your friends about it. And it just takes time.

Or maybe it’s because other people are attracted to those who are themselves. I once listened to a Bukowski interview in which he talked about why people love horror films and documentaries about serial killers because those people do whatever they want, even if it’s against the law or immoral. People have a desire in themselves to be like that, to do whatever they want. Deep down they resent that they have to obey, they have to fit in line, they have to follow the rules.

The roots weaving, exposed, across the surface of the trail. Worn smooth, like leather. Gnarled, twisting, covered in dust.

Where human feet flayed back the soil, exposing veiny roots. Some broken, maybe kicked and cracked. Others reach above with space between themselves and the trail, and then dive back down into the dirt. Next to a large tree, many extend out, like many fingers, reaching down this trail. Grasping, crawling towards the river, parched. I wonder what messages they send through the system to the deeper roots,

submerged—dank, dark, hydrated. These roots exposed on the trail are on the front lines, doing the dirty work in a foreign land, keeping the pipe open, protecting the flow of water.