How much l wanted to take scalps, but it was not my kill. - Legends of the Fall - Jim Harrison

"The danger of civilization, of course, is that you will piss away your life on nonsense." from The Beast God Forgot to Invent

As a geezer one grows tired of the story of Sisyphus. Let that boulder stay where it is and, by its presence, exactly where it wished to be, but then I’m old enough to have forgotten what the boulder stood for? I think of all of the tons of junk the climbers have left up on Everest, including a few bodies. Even the pyramids, those imitation mountains, say to the gods, “We can do it too.” Despite planes you can’t get off the earth for long. Even the dead meat strays behind, changing shape, the words drift into the twilight across the lake. I’m not bold enough to give a poetry reading while alone far out in the desert to a gathering of saguaro and organ-pipe cactus or listen to my strophes reverberate off a mountain wall. At dawn I sat on a huge boulder near Cave Creek deep in the Chiracahuas and listened to it infer that it didn’t want to go way back up the mountain but liked it near the creek where gravity bought its passage so long ago. Everest told me to get this crap off my head or stay at home and make your own little pyramids.

I don't want to get married or run away. I want my free will. I just want to love someone and not get fucked over.