44
" It is pleasant to be free," wrote Aldous Huxley, who, like Eberhart, for years owned little more than an automobile and a few books. "Bus occasionally, I must confession, I regret the chains with which I have not loaded myself. In these moods I desire a house full of stuff, a plot of land with things growing on it; I feel that I should like to know one small place and its people intimately, that I should like to have known then for years, all my life. But one cannot be two incompatible things at the same time. If one desires freedom, one must sacrifice the advantages of being bound. "
― Robert Moor , On Trails: An Exploration
47
" trace begins to evolve into a trail. As Huxley argued, the same pattern underlies all scientific progress; best guesses are ventured, which, over time, become better guesses. Thus a trail grows—a hunch is strengthened to a claim, a claim splits into a dialogue, a dialogue frays into a debate, a debate swells into a chorus, and a chorus rises, full, now, of clashes and echoes and weird new harmonies, with each new voice calling out: "
― Robert Moor , On Trails: An Exploration
48
" In the end, we are all existential pathfinders: We select among the paths life affords, and then, when those paths no longer work for us, we edit them and innovate as necessary. The tricky part is that while we are editing our trails, our trails are also editing us. I witnessed this phenomenon firsthand on the Appalachian Trail. The trail was modified with each step we hikers took, but ultimately, the trail steered our course. By following it, we streamlined to its conditions: we lost weight, shed possessions, and increased our pace week after week. The same rule applies to our life’s pathways: collectively we shape them, but individually they shape us. So we must choose our paths wisely. "
― Robert Moor , On Trails: An Exploration
49
" Evolution, he explained, is a form of long-term, genetic optimization; the same process of trial and error takes place. And, as Darwin showed, in the great universal act of streamlining, even the errors are essential. If some ants weren’t error-prone, the ant trail would never straighten out. The scouts may be the genius architects who blaze the trails, but any rogue worker can be the one who stumbles upon a shortcut. Everyone optimizes, whether we are pioneering or perpetuating, making rules or breaking them, succeeding or screwing up. "
― Robert Moor , On Trails: An Exploration
50
" As a species, humans straddle a line between external and internal intelligence. With big brains and (typically) small clan size, humans have traditionally harnessed individual cleverness to outcompete rivals for food and mates, to hunt and dominate other species, and, eventually, to seize control of the planet. As later chapters will show, we have also externalized our wisdom in the form of trails, oral storytelling, written texts, art, maps, and much more recently, electronic data. Nevertheless, even in the Internet era, we still romanticize the lone genius. Most of us—especially us Americans—like to consider any brilliance we may possess, and the accomplishments that have sprung from it, as being solely our own. In our egotism, we have long remained blind to the communal infrastructure that undergirds our own eureka moments. "
― Robert Moor , On Trails: An Exploration