solitude?

watched a documentary a few days ago, grizzly man, that stirred some unexpected memories. timothy treadwell spent 13 years living on and off in the wild with grizzly bears... i was surprised by the first few minutes of his footage on the film; he seemed so earnest but immature, not like your usual wildlife documentary presenters... he was a sort of typical troubled young man who drank too much, and of all the things that could have saved him, it was his encounters with grizzly bears, of which he came to see himself as the lone protector, the "kind warrior". his love for the bears and the world they lived in was childlike in its profoundness (profundity?) - over and over in his footage he said, i love these animals, i love these animals, i love these animals, i live for them, i would die for them. he was overflowing with gratefulness - to God? - for having the opportunity to do all that he was doing, to be of service to the bears.
but, as director warner herzog says, he crossed a line in somehow believing he was actually of them... and in the end, though once he said, "lord, i don't want to be hurt by a bear," he was killed by a bear, brutally torn to pieces by what he loved more than anything else. herzog makes his documentary into a story about a man who was so disillusioned with the darkness he encountered in humanity that he tried to make his own humanity disappear into the wilds... but in doing so he crossed a line he shouldn't have, and paid the ultimate price.
his desire to sort of be devoured (no pun intended, but irony sort of intended) by the wilderness he lived in reminded me of a similar but much milder sentiment i held waaaaay back in high school. i was very sheltered, very young, very attracted to things like the sierra club and explorers club and outdoors stuff without really understanding them (or maybe i did in a certain way). i wrote this in my journal at the time (please remember i was only 14 at the time and very artsy-fartsy and into medieval and fantasy stuff, etc etc):

9:45 p.m. friday sept. 25 1992 (excerpt):... too far i have drifted away, too long i have traveled the roads and paths upon which no foot has before tread. i laugh, even as i languish, i laugh grimly at the greatness of the irony, that the pain of the vast loneliness inflicted upon me by the wild expanse of nature is less than, nay, sweeter than, even, the agony inflicted upon my soul by the silent coldness of my fellow humans! their icy stares, though cold as the stars, brand like hot irons scars upon my soul, searing the heart and very essence of my existence! ...i would take the long pathways, dipping through the deep valleys and carving the hillsides and marking the fields; rather than endure the ignorance and prejudice of those familiar to me, i choose the wild! fain would i be nearer the heart of the earth than the hearts of the peoples, which are as dark and empty voids. mine own soul shall be filled with the songs of birds, the scent of dawn and dusk, the blue of sky and the sparkling white of the snow, the endless green of the fields, dusted gently with golden buttercups and scarlet poppies, and the deep and lasting silence that fills my senses as does the peace of the darkness of night! while the light of the fire at the hearth betrays me, the sweet flames flickering in the darkness outside welcomes me, and this blessed darkness beckons me! for there i shall at last come to love, what no other can give me, but God's gentle and innocent creations shall accept me, for i am of them.
...the tale of a misanthrope, truly...

yes, i used the word "fain." tres cheesy... if i recall correctly, i had sort of taken a thought and written it out in extreme form, just for the sake of writing something... i didn't actually feel this way, betrayed by humanity, but i liked very much the idea of being alone "out there." it's funny - "gentle and innocent creations" - that is exactly where herzog said treadwell made his biggest mistake, in seeing all of nature as gentle and innocent, even the grizzlies. others in the film saw the beauty of the bears' world, but understood it was one that humans could not safely enter, and herzog himself commented that he saw nature as "indifferent" and brutal. i can't entirely agree with that, being someone who believes "nature" is both a gift from and a sign of God, but i do clearly see the line that treadwell crossed. as much as a part of me still wishes to be someone who could brave the elements, survive in the wild, blah blah blah... i need my air conditioning :) an experience here and there (well, a little more than that) is enough to keep my awe of this world and the power behind it alive... despite his foolishness, i am still moved by how completely treadwell gave himself over to the world he wanted to belong to. it is something like faith, and i admire a little bit about anyone who has such purity somewhere in their hearts - it is something i am searching for myself, even if it will always be tempered by my american sense of questioning...