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A review by brontherun
AWOL on the Appalachian Trail by David Miller
3.0
David Miller quit his job in Information Technology, said a sad see you later to his kids and wife, and set off to walk the entire length of the Appalachian Trail. In becoming a thru-hiker mid-life, he was dropping the shackles of his cubicle job in search of a life-altering adventure.
I have never back-packed for more than a long weekend, so while I love hiking on the AT, my ability to appreciate this book is strongly connected to what he left behind in order to embark on this adventure. He recounts that, "Since leaving my job for the trail, I have received overwhelming support from former coworkers and friends who hold similar jobs. They are intrigued by the adventure, but what they can most relate to is the desire to abandon the cubicle, to walk away from unfulfilling employment." His office job with IT work sounds similar enough to mine that I could potentially be one of those cubicle prisoners who cheer on his escape from corporate drone life onto the trail.
Oh course, he also take a sabbatical from fatherhood/husband-hood, and personally that is difficult for me to fathom. However, his hike becomes so much more than a walk in the woods, and the lessons he learns are recorded faithfully enough in his journals and articles for a local publication that they translate well into book narrative here. This feels almost like an internal transformation, as well as the physical one that is played out on his body through injury, weight loss, and other trials. I appreciate his honesty with doubts about finishing and knowing when to persevere and when to cease an activity. His philosophy on this seems to be captured when he states, "Wisdom is knowing when perseverance will be rewarded."
I have never back-packed for more than a long weekend, so while I love hiking on the AT, my ability to appreciate this book is strongly connected to what he left behind in order to embark on this adventure. He recounts that, "Since leaving my job for the trail, I have received overwhelming support from former coworkers and friends who hold similar jobs. They are intrigued by the adventure, but what they can most relate to is the desire to abandon the cubicle, to walk away from unfulfilling employment." His office job with IT work sounds similar enough to mine that I could potentially be one of those cubicle prisoners who cheer on his escape from corporate drone life onto the trail.
Oh course, he also take a sabbatical from fatherhood/husband-hood, and personally that is difficult for me to fathom. However, his hike becomes so much more than a walk in the woods, and the lessons he learns are recorded faithfully enough in his journals and articles for a local publication that they translate well into book narrative here. This feels almost like an internal transformation, as well as the physical one that is played out on his body through injury, weight loss, and other trials. I appreciate his honesty with doubts about finishing and knowing when to persevere and when to cease an activity. His philosophy on this seems to be captured when he states, "Wisdom is knowing when perseverance will be rewarded."