Great question.  After the fact, I had a million answers to give, but it was all gut when I decided to hike the Trail.  When I say ‘gut’ I mean ‘intuition,’ or maybe even ‘epiphany’. You tell me: I was sitting on the front porch trying to read a psychology textbook on a cold and windy day, and suddenly it hit me. “Something about this isn't true. This just isn't right.” My stomach sort of fluttered. My memory is a bit hazy, but I remember getting this sublime cold sweat and feeling like something greater than myself was sitting on the front porch. Call it whatever you want- Jesus, God, the Over-Soul, whatever- but it whispered into my mind: The Appalachian Trail.

Now, the skeptic in me 'diagnosed' the epiphany was an explosive psychosomatic reaction to a strong mix of indiscernible stimuli. But then again, this didn't follow much logic. Neither did it fit with any tidy patterns of escape, desire, or ambition. This was not  what I wanted to hear. It just kind of was, right before me yet impossible to describe in words. And in my heart, I had already hiked the Trail.

Wordsworth believed that intuition was too lofty to be easily grasped. And, because it was so brief, he said we should blindly act on it. Run down that strange illuminated path while it lasts, he said. The answer—long, true and beautiful—will come after the race is run.  So I didn’t wait. Off I went down the rabbit hole, banking on finding an answer at the bottom.