Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

to fit in this glen. In the industrial cities, which are already grey, it makes me depressed, but it goes here, it is still pretty.

But twenty minutes later I had changed my mind. The rain, this constant fucking rain. But then this is what Scottish culture is all about!

I laughed, thinking, this is the real reason we’ve invented so much stuff. John Logie Baird was just sick of sitting on his arse, bored in the house on days like this, so he invented the TV to give himself something to do. Alexander Graham Bell was fed up getting soaked when he walked to his mates, so he just invented the telephone to talk to them over that instead. And Alexander Fleming and Robert Thomson and James Hutton and James Maxwell, the rain had drove all them indoors too, and forced them to do something creative to fill the time. I delighted at the ridiculousness of it, and it went through my head, boredom and frustration are the driving forces of mankind.

That makes sense, I thought. Maybe they are.

I reached the bridge and headed up the river again, stopping at the sixty-foot chasm for the fourth time. It was beautiful. The peaceful water slowly drifting through smooth red sandstone towers. And in the middle of those towers some ingenious little shrubs had found cracks to grow in, from thirty feet above the water.

But the scene was missing something. I realised the original feeling of awe it had over me, had gone. Or at least diminished. The first time, with Harry, I was simply stunned. And yesterday after the storm, it looked amazing too. But today, it just wasn’t as impressive.

I moved on upriver, towards the waterfalls and the whirlpool. Maybe I need to move, I thought. Take the tent and put it somewhere else. But I can’t, for Harry coming back. But that’s the great thing about a tent, I can be nomadic if I want to. If I don’t like where I am, I can up and leave and take my home with me. But a house is rooted. And so many houses are built so close together, and on top of each other, our personal space is nonexistent. And if you have bad neighbors, you can’t move your house, you have to move out. Houses as well, get you in a position of being indebted to landlords and governments. To get money you have to join their club of routines and restrictions and rules. When did it become normal to live your life to work? But living out here means I don’t have to conform. No house. No bills. No taxes. No rent. Nor the stress that comes with any of those things. I am living as simply as possible. Simplicity is peace. Peace leads to happiness and fulfillment. Yeah, that’s true. And I’ve made a big change by coming here. On the first night I was scared. I was scared last night too. But it’s change, and change is good, it’s how you grow. Maybe that’s where depression came from- boredom, lack of challenge, and having to stay in one place? When the hunter-gatherers were moving around, fighting animals and hunting, every single day a battle to survive and always feeling adrenaline, they wouldn’t have been depressed! What can you do if you feel that fight or flight hormone now? But nobody does anything about it anyway. About houses or any of this. Most people are simply passengers on the ride of life. They coast along like they’re passengers on a train that’s being driven by someone else, rarely testing themselves, hiding in their safe jobs in their safe homes in their safe cities. They sit in comfort watching the world go by from the inside, the modern man does anyway. Well, here I am, the driver, I will navigate and beat them all and laugh about it.

But what am I doing that’s so unique? Shut up, of course you are. This society is so expectant and entitled. The government needs to do everything and provide for everyone. It’s the government’s duty to fix their lives and sort society. We need, they need, personal responsibility. Personal responsibility?

I wasn’t making any sense. All I knew is that I was stupid and dumb as fuck and knew nothing. I passed the whirlpool and the waterfall below the ridge to my left and kept on walking on to new territory up the river.

I passed by some really old pine trees, and many birches and alders, and soon came to a spectacular oak- thick and sturdy and with three huge growths protruding from its middle. Its girth was about ten times the size of the other trees. Two gigantic branches hung below the rest and one of them was almost touching the ground. I couldn’t resist climbing up onto it and I crawled along its length, almost hugging it at its narrowest point. I got about fifteen feet up then climbed up the next branch which drooped down, and I went on and on until I was more than halfway up but couldn’t go any higher. I couldn’t see much from up there except for the other trees. A yellow leaf drifted past me on its way to the ground.

It was still drizzling rain, but the bark wasn’t so slippy, and as I hung suspended in mid-air, supported by the arms of this giant tree, I was suddenly overcome with gratitude. For life? For keeping me up there? For the air that I breathed? I didn’t know, but I felt like kissing the tree, and so I did.

I clambered back down and trudged on through the thick, leafy mulch, stopping to turn around and stare at the tree once more. That feeling of awe was back in me. It was a real grandad tree of the forest, the biggest by far I’d seen in the glen. And as I