(Two years in the woods.) I brought no computer, no television, no cellphone. There was a land line, which rang maybe twice a month, so a wrong number was an event…
Five years earlier, during my junior year at Harvard, a freak accident had blinded me in my right eye. During a pick-up game of basketball, as we scuffled for a rebound, a boy’s finger hooked behind my eyeball and severed its attachment to my optic nerve, the cable that connects the eye to the brain. The pain was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. There was nothing the doctors could do. The loss of vision to my right eye was permanent. With vision in only one eye, there’s no stereopsis, no depth perception. And without depth perception, the world looked simultaneously flat and permeable, like I’d crossed the threshold into a fantasy land, where nothing was solid, including my sense of myself…
To compound my disorientation, after the blood dissipated, my eye looked as it always had. The gap between how I presented myself and how people saw me widened into a gulf. And the track I’d been on, which headed toward law school, and the old track of my thinking, which often allowed the comfort of achievement to substitute for meaning, and which had kept me from entering into the passing landscape to forge my own values, became impossible to live by…
I went to the woods because I needed to live without the need of putting on a face for anyone, including myself. I needed to be no one, really, while carrying the hope that my particular no one might feel familiar, might turn out to be someone I had known all along—the core of who I’d been as boy, the core of who I might become as a man. My plan was to find that core by returning to moments of wonder, of pure attention, to become aware of myself by the quality of my perceptions rather than by others’ perceptions of me.
In the woods, I developed my own rituals. In fall, day after day, I crouched in the wet grass with the snails, trying to see as slowly as they seemed to. In winter, day after day, I snowshoed into the snowy trees and watched for chickadees, learning to let my eyes go soft, open to movement, rather than stalking branch to branch. I was learning to trust a more generous reality, one that allowed for all I could not see and all that could not be seen in me, one that didn’t need hard lines or tracks to make me feel oriented. I became aware of a kind of spiritual responsibility—the need to go far enough back so there would be nothing else waiting behind, the need to touch the hard edge of reality, and begin from there. For the deepest moments in life—for love, for prayer—we close our eyes. I wanted to see that way, always, even with my eyes open.
~ Howard Axelrod, Two years in the woods: No computer, no television, no cellphone — but I was no Thoreau
Notes:
- Source: Find the full adapted excerpt of Alexrod’s novel here – Salon Magazine
- Find his book at Amazon here: The Point of Vanishing: A Memoir of Two Years in Solitude
Live & Learn 
I must now read this one 🙂
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I’m 1/4 in…hope you enjoy.
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“…for the deepest moments in life… we close our eyes…” Truth.
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Smiling. That’s it.
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I read about this book a while back and put it in my queue. I even thought ‘I should send this to DK, as I think he’d find it interesting,’ which you did. ☺️ Fascinating guy. My favorite passage: “My plan was to find that core by returning to moments of wonder, of pure attention, to become aware of myself by the quality of my perceptions rather than by others’ perceptions of me.” A gift we should all strive to give ourselves, no? 😀
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Smiling. (Note to Self: I am becoming transparent on my reading interests) He is a fascinating man Lori. And particularly love the excerpt you reference. Yes, the answer is year.
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why a kiss with eyes closed feels so much more passionate.
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It seems he is more like Thoreau than he gives himself credit for being. Eye-opening.
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Van, I agree with you on this. Perhaps the new world version.
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Maybe I have had not quite as extreme of an experience, but back in the late 80’s, early 90’s, I moved into a tiny apartment, no tv, no radio and for awhile, no phone. News was whatever trickled into my awareness from co-workers and friends. Weather was what happened when I went outside. My family was worried about me, but this quieting was something I desperately needed at the time.
I spent a lot of time playing guitar, walking, either in my immediate neighborhood of rural southeastern Long Island, or a little further east in the Quogue Wildlife Sanctuary, alone, mostly. One of the more remarkable things that began to happen is that I felt less alone than ever. Because I had no expectations, I began to listen and pay attention to my surroundings more deeply; noticing people, and in taking their presence in, I sometimes felt invisible. I began to see other’s humanity, and so, began to feel my own.
Filling it less, time slowed, which taught me that hurrying doesn’t save time, it gobbles it up and leads to a desire for more. Although it probably drives some people crazy, I have retained this fondness for slowing. Yep, I’m that annoying person doing the speed limit. 🙂
So yes, maybe there is a core, but it is not what I expected it to be. There’s a lot of sensitivity and rawness there that can be quite challenging to be with.
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Wow, Debra. Thanks for sharing. Had to read your comment twice to digest…beautiful.
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Thank you David. The book looks like a good one.
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I love this DK! The stripping away of ego and finding what is beyond it, takes courage, patience and trust. ❤️
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Right up your Middle Ground Alley Val.
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“The need to go far enough back so there would be nothing else waiting behind” Looks like an inspiring memoir. If we could all go back to face our fears and past, we would realise this is how we can live fully in this moment and move forward. Healing is always found in the stillness.
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Yes Karen. Thanks.
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I am always inspired by people who choose to walk an unbeaten path and the insights they gain from that experience.
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Me too. In awe.
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Another one for my book list. But I think this one will be hard to read for me. Very close to the bone.
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Very close to the bone for a number of us.
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I like what Debra, shared 🙂 …// .I read of Howard Axelrod’s book, months ago..and it left an impression on me then as it does now… “the old track of my thinking, which often allowed the comfort of achievement to substitute for meaning, and which had kept me from entering into the passing landscape to forge my own values, …..My plan was to find that core by returning to moments of wonder, of pure attention, to become aware of myself by the quality of my perceptions rather than by others’ perceptions of me….to live without the need of putting on a face for anyone, including myself… I was learning to trust a more generous reality…the need to go far enough back so there would be nothing else waiting behind, the need to touch the hard edge of reality, and begin from there. For the deepest moments in life—for love, for prayer—we close our eyes.” He lost partial sight but gained so much insight…his “Vanishing” lead him to Authentic Truth…I plan to never stop engaging my sense of Curiosity in search of the Joy of Wonder….
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He lost partial sight but gained so much insight. That’s it Christie. Right there.
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