The NOLS Goal!

I know I've mentioned NOLS here several times before, and said that this is something which I really want to do, so I thought I should dedicate a posting to NOLS. NOLS stands for 'National Outdoor Leadership School' and NOLS was started in the state of Wyoming in 1965 by a famous mountaineer named Paul Petzoldt who believed that the best classroom for teaching is the wilderness. NOLS mission is to teach people technical outdoor skills, leadership and environmental ethics, making its students good stewards of the environment. There is no formal physical classroom at NOLS - it's all in the remote wilderness where few people care to go, away from civilization and roads. Most of their courses last thirty days, but they can be as short as ten days or as long as an entire year. NOLS has locations all over the world, from Tibet, to Australia, to Scandinavia to the Gulf of Mexico to Wyoming, the Yukon and Alaska.

For me, the options for locations are almost mind baffling. I have always wanted to visit northern Canada, but in Alaska I feel the call of the Chilkoot Trail and Scandinavia sounds like a fascinating landscape. In Wyoming I could learn to ride a horse and pack with it, going deep into the wilderness aboard an equine friend. I was amazed when I heard of NOLS and now the desire to take one of their courses is a burning desire. What could you discover, twenty days away from any road, a distance which you have traveled using only your own two feet? What kind of person would you become? NOLS is a life changing experiance. To me it sounds like the world's absolute greatest scout camp.

But for me, NOLS is a ways off and not just because I lack the finances. This past year digestive problems have made me suffer and I am likely weaker than I have ever been, too weak to go on a NOLS trip where I would be hiking sometimes literally from sunrise to sundown for days, covering hundreds of kilometres. Before I can even think of applying to NOLS, I have to get abolish my irritable bowel syndrome and I will have to work drastically on my fitness, but I believe that I can do it. Yesterday, I at last found a resource for what I've been looking for - a book detailing the proper diet for the human body. Since I've learned the proper diet for members of Carnivora, I've wondered what the proper diet is for our kind - herbivorous omnivores. I think that once I switch myself onto this healthier diet I will get substantually healthier, which will help allow me to do more physical exertion. I've had the unpleasant thought a few times working my last job carrying 40lb bags of dog food that I might be getting weaker still. That needs to stop.

I believe that proper diet cures all ills. In a truly healthy cat, for instance, their digestive tract is so acidic that their saliva is antibacterial, meaning they are actually immune to sickness caused by bacterial infection. Most domestic cats aren't this healthy though, but if you look at cats in the wild, very few of them are ever sick. Since I've been little I've thought it rather strange that things like cancer were not such a big deal a hundred years ago, yet people yelp about it all over the place on our society now. Is there a cure for cancer? Yes, I believe so - eating correctly. Our western society doesn't. Our diets are as bad as the trash that we feed to our carnivorous animals, yet in older societies which have stayed traditional to their heritage, people easily live spryly into their golden years without any problems from stuff like cancer.

Personally, I really look down on conventional medication because most of the time it's really just a bandage. It conceals the symptom, but then it often gives you OTHER symptoms in trade. The most disgusting example I have heard of in conventional medicine is a practice which concerns the treatment of ulcers, where the nerve which connects the brain to the stomach is severed. What does this do?! It doesn't solve the problem of the ulcer (which, by the way, are NOT caused by influx of stress or emotions but by poor diet) it just cuts out your ability to sense that you are in pain and need to change something. (Like your diet.) The more I research diet, whole, holistic, ancestral, biologically appropriate diet, the more I see that diet can solve probably every ill in the body, perhaps even those which are mental. Now, wouldn't that be divine, if my 'uncurable' anxiety disorder and my 'uncurable' irritable bowel syndrome both went away? I think the statement that any disease or bodily problem is uncurable is utter bullshit, perhaps designed by drug companies who want our money. Natural medicine has already helped cure my mother of something which we had all thought would never go away. That's one reason for me to believe so strongly in natural things like a simple change in diet - natural medicine, when properly explained, is extremely logical. It tells you how and why it works and it doesn't hurt you more in exchange. It's said that the body has a tremendous capacity for healing when actually given a chance.

I'll write more about proper human diet after I've finished reading my new resource book as it's not just good research on a personal level, but also for characterization. It's kind of amazing how my journey to find out the details of why Ki gets sick and how he gets better is leading to my own hopeful jump in well being.

Characterization and writing is another reason why I want to take a NOLS course, as 'the long journey' theme seems to be a common element of all of my stories. Since I've been going on long road trips every summer since I was a tiny kid, maybe that's not a coincidence. NOLS to me, sounds like an 'ultimate road trip.' It could be really fun; I could really road trip all the way to the course, maybe with my parents, then I could road trip back afterwards too. Also, as for the writing, NOLS would be a really great inspiration. I'd actually get to see what it's really like to travel for days on end on foot or in saddle. Then I'd REALLY be able to describe the sensation!

NOLS is a far off goal, but I'm wishing and I'm hoping pretty hard, so maybe now the universe will listen to me and give me the means to get there. That's what I'm hoping. I really think that after thirty days in the wilderness, I might finally be able to make up my bloody mind about stuff!