Life is like a brook…. it goes over smooth rocks, through winding passages, is wonderful when it becomes a waterfull, is turbulent in spots….

In regards to life and learning, since I don’t know a thing about you, I’ll work with my distant past.

My parents taught me to go to the best schools and study hard to be an honor student. However after three years at University, I suddenly left… went out-of-state to start a commune with a group of people I didn’t even know. They had simply included me in a discussion of what they wanted to do and it drew me away and into an adventure.

It was a good idea, because there I learned many things about life that an honor student wouldn’t know. How to dig ditches, plant a vegetable garden, build a chicken coop, & live in a tipi in sunshine or deep snow, to give only a few examples. I was very young and loved all of it.

Unfortunately my parents were very disappointed, even though I went back to school for a good while…and they didn’t speak to me. I spoke to them (in letters) all the time to keep up a communication.

Years later they lovingly accepted me back in the family, and accepted my adventures as well. My father admitted that he had always wished he could do something like that.

The analogy is that even though a good university and the mountains are so different, I still learned a lot at each place, which made them similar.

End of story!