With Thanksgiving just over and what for many is the start of the "Christmas" rush, my guess is that thankfulness will soon be forgotten. I just read an excellent editorial in the on-line L.A. Times called "Winning the rat race by quitting it", written by Ezra Klein. It can be found at: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-klein24nov24,0,6177657.story?coll=la-tot-opinion&track=ntothtml

He says we have two kinds of happiness, "people" happiness and "things" happiness.

He explains that people happiness is what we remember at Thanksgiving, when we get together with family and friends. This is the happiness we remember when we think back about what we are thankful for over the past year. It rules our memories. But things happiness rules our actions. Which is why we work harder and longer to buy things we don't need; to make us happy, but then we have less time to enjoy them because we are working too much. There is also a law of diminishing returns with the happiness that more, as well as better and bigger, things bring us.

Maybe this is because we have less time to enjoy each individual thing, because our time is divided among so many. Also, like cars - a 400 hp car doesn't go twice as fast as a 200 hp car; a 5,000 sq. ft. house doesn't make us twice as happy as a 2,500 sq. ft. house, whereas going from living in a tent to a small house might make someone much happier.

Klein also says that for many, our happiness (or what we think will make us happy) is based on a comparison of what we have with what those around us have. He says that researchers have found that the majority of people would rather make $50,000 a year while everyone else makes $25,000, than to make $100,000 while everyone else makes $200,000. It's a matter of competition; that's what drives the rat race for many people. We aren't content if those around us have more, better or bigger things than we do.

Here is Klein's solution to the problem: "Stop. Pull out of the competition. Seriously ask whether you want to continue trading away your time for your stuff. And that requires ignoring what your neighbors have. It requires shutting your eyes against short-term incentives and trying to remember what actually makes you happy, what you tend to remember when each year closes out".

I, and many of my fellow hikers, experienced this firsthand on our PCT hike last year, walking from Mexico to Canada. Most of us didn't much miss houses, cars, TVs, all of our "toys" and things. We missed family and friends (and of course hot showers and good food!). We made new friends on the trail, they became our family. We cared about, and cared for, each other. Helping each other and all getting safely across a raging river where there was no bridge made us happy. So did a small level spot to pitch our tents, a hot bowl of instant mashed potatoes with cheese, a phone call home, and seeing fellow hikers that we hadn't seen for a month or so. The freedom of being out in nature and hiking in the mountains, the fresh air and the beautiful scenery made us happy, so did the freedom from all the material things that we thought we needed to be happy, just a few months before. Everyone I have talked to since, looks back on the whole experience as a happy time, inspite of the hardships, tiredness, and sometimes pain, of walking 20 to 30 miles a day, carrying everything we needed on our backs. We want to do it again. We were free to be happy, free from worry and "things", free from the rat race.

For some time Brad has had plans to start a Christian radio station here in Cotahuasi. It took ages for the license to be approved but we finally have it. There is an unused tower up on the rim of the high plain, that belongs to some government agency. After of couple of years of trying to get permission to either rent or buy the tower, all of the positive promises turned to nothing, so the plan is now to build our own tower. Ironically it will be right along side of the unused one. Claro (cell phone service provider) has recently built a tower for their cell phone antenna, which is about ¼ mile away. Currently there isn't any electricity up there, but they are working on that. As I understand it, the plan is to share the cost with Claro, and when they get the power line finished, we will have electricity.

Last Sunday in church, Fredy asked me if I would be able to help him and some of the other brothers who were going up there on Wednesday. I understood that they were going to gather rocks to use for the foundation of the radio equipment building, that will be at the base of the tower. I wasn't sure what exactly would be involved but agreed to go and help, as well as provide transportation up there in my van. As we were loading the six of us and tools into the van, I soon found out that this was going to be a rock breaking expedition. The large pry bars and 18-pound sledge hammers were a clear confirmation of that. At least it gave me a great high-altitude workout to help prepare for my upcoming mountain guiding next month.

They loaded one other thing that didn't have anything to do with breaking rocks. They said that the last time they were up there they saw four deer, so this time they were taking a gun along. On the switchbacks up to the rim, one of them shouted out that he thought he saw a deer. They all jumped out and Santiago grabbed the rifle. I couldn't see the whole gun but saw him getting small pieces of cloth and then he stuffed them down the barrel - it was an ancient muzzle loader! We never saw the "deer" again but did see some cows and burros in the brush. I'm glad they didn't fire that relic anywhere near me, I was afraid it might explode.

One of my summer jobs during college in Hawaii was with a masonry construction company. The company did everything from single family homes in subdivisions to large multi-story apartments and hotels. One of my favorite jobs was when I was helping a crew building a retaining wall out of large rocks. To get a flat face for the wall, the rocks had to be split in half. We would drill a hole in the middle of the rock with a pneumatic hammer/drill and then drive a splitting wedge in there and the rock would crack in half. We also used sledge hammers to break some of the smaller ones. As a 25-year old it was fun to see who could break the rocks with the least number of hits and with a nice even split.

As I learned last year on my PCT hike, I'm not 25 anymore. Those heavy sledge hammers don't swing as easily as they used to. I tried a 12-pound sledge but that just bounced off the rocks like a toy. Part of the problem is that they were all lava rock, most of which were quite porous, like petrified sponges. We also didn't have an air compressor and a pneumatic drill. The next to the last nail in my coffin was the fact that we were working at an elevation of 13,630 feet! Needless to say, I spent more time carrying the broken rocks over to the road rather than breaking them.

I was able to get in four or five good swings before I was gasping for breath and had to take a break. I also learned that all rocks are not created equal. Some of them were much less porous and were a lot easier to break. Also the thinner flat ones were fairly easy to break. The hardest ones were the large thick ones, that were usually the most porous as well. I left those for the young ones.

Except that the best rock breaker wasn't one of the younger ones. Santiago is about 45, probably about 5'3" and solid muscle. I enjoyed watching him teach a few weeks ago when we went to San Sebastian; he showed another of his many talents yesterday. He would pick a rock about two or three feet in diameter and study it, rolling it over and looking at all sides. They came in all shapes, with dips, knobs and flat spots. I know enough to look for cracks and faults, which makes it easier to break the rock, but these rocks didn't have them. I don't know how he did it but he would break up a rock in about half of the hits of anyone else. And he rarely took a break like the rest of us. He would just keep on slicing off chunks until it was all usable pieces. We had two large sledge hammers, and I think he was using one of them for about ¾ of the day. The rest of us took turns using the other one, and his when he wasn't using it. His hands were a bit chewed up by the end of the day, but no blisters.

There is a great lesson to be learned from breaking rocks. A easy small rock might break in just one or two well placed hits. The larger ones are a different story. You might hit it five or ten times and it doesn't look like you are making any progress and you are ready to give up (or at least take a break or two). Then on the next hit the rock will split, as if by magic. But each one of those previous hits was needed to reach the point where the rock would break. Of course consistency is a key, you need to hit the same place or the same line, each time to make it count. Rarely, a fine crack would appear to let you know the next hit would break the rock. Santiago could sometimes tell by the sound change that the rock was ready to split.

The lesson? Keep on keeping on, watch for signs of hidden progress, and don't quit one hit before the victory.