For quite some time I had been entertaining in the back of my mind the idea of doing the AT one day, ideally a few days after the day I get fired from my job but only if that day comes at some point before I'm 40. But today I reached the conclusion that the AT is not for me. It's not that I think I don't have the physical strength, the mental focus, or the survival skills required to do it, it's just that the social aspect of it sickens me. If I'm going to embark on a 2000 mile journey, the last thing I want to see is people. And if I'm going to see people, I sure as hell don't want to see the same people I saw the week before. And this whole thing about having a trail nickname, and the AT-related slang terms you adopt, and the entire subculture thing is not for me. I'm not the kind of person who wants to feel like he is part of something or who thinks that accomplishing the same thing that thousands of people - young and old, male and female - have accomplished is much of an accomplishment let alone something to feel proud of. I'd rather embark on something new, something original, fully knowing that at the end of the journey I will likely not have learned anything new about myself or found the epiphany that has eluded me all my life. The grief, the angst, the lack of meaning and sense of direction than inspire people to embark on these journeys will still be there.