Occasionally (and perhaps too occasionally), I get lost in the forest. It is never a pleasant experience, and it is something that should not happen to me as often as it does, but it does happen, and I do not like it.

I am rambling.

That is because just thinking about getting lost in the forest gives me such an empty, hollow feeling that I gain a desire to fill that nothingness with something, even rambling thoughts that lead to nothing. The emptiness and loneliness and desperation are hard to combat, so the words do not really help.

I have to learn to avoid that void instead of fill it, so I have to understand where it comes from.

A distraction is what usually starts it. I chased after a napkin covered in a delicious looking sauce the other day. I ran after it for a long time, hoping to catch it and lick it and enjoy whatever sauce was smothered on the sides of it. It got away. The wind carried it to a very excited raccoon, and I lost the napkin for good. I also lost my way. I looked around my surroundings and tried to get a feel for where I was or from what direction I came.

I could not do it, though.

I spun in circles for almost as long as I had chased the napkin, hoping to get some sense of where I needed to go to get to familiar territory. Could I follow a smell? Could I follow some leaves I had stepped on? Would the raccoon be kind enough to point me in the right direction (after all, I had just let him have a very lovely napkin)?

Nothing worked, and I became anxious and frightened immediately.

And dizzy. I became dizzy from all the spinning.

After a nice nap to let the dizziness wear off (I found a very comfortable pile of leaves under a tree), I got up and began my search for home again. I began to wander, hoping that just as easily I had gotten lost I would be able to find my way again. Everything simply began to look more and more unfamiliar.

A very sincere part of me just wanted to stop where I was and begin living there. That would be an easy solution, I figured, and I even began the initial actions to begin such a proceeding (getting familiar with the smells of the area, trying to ask a opossum what it thinks about trees (hissing noises), etc.).

Then I saw the napkin I was chasing. The raccoon had abandoned it. It still had a small amount of delicious looking sauce!

I chased it again, a distraction from the predicament that was caused by the same distraction. At the time, I was unable to see the loop of distraction based maroonedness I was setting myself up for. I was far too distracted by delicious looking sauces.

So I ran again. And again, the napkin was captured by another creature (this time, a bird (do birds even like sauces (of course they do, all things like sauces))).

When I stopped, I was no longer lost. I was right back where I had originally found the napkin that led me astray originally. I wandered back to my cave and took another. I was still a little dizzy, and even though I was home, I was still upset I did not get my sauce.

I guess I should be avoiding distractions? I do not know. But being home is nice.

I am a bear.

If you would like to try being a bear, why not read some of the bear adventures available on this very site? 

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