Growth and advancement in a leisure activity is at its core useless and wasteful.  What benefit do we, those we love, society, the greater world around us, derive from a dedication to growth and progression in the sport of fly fishing?  This question often bothers me.  I have dedicated my life to the sport of fly fishing.  I have dedicated myself to helping others grow and understand the sport of fly fishing. I have built a small outfitting business around the idea of helping others progress in the sport of fly fishing.  I have never been a big proponent of skills clinics, or classes because I have always considered any guided fly fishing trip, or a DIY  fly fishing trip to be a skills clinic.  There is little substitute for learning than actually engaging in the activity one wishes to learn, especially if you have someone more advanced in their progression, and dedicated to helping yours along, standing right next you.  If Im being honest I derive a great deal of purpose from being a fly fishing guide, along with a small amount of compensation.  I’d do it for free if I could, but the bank, the power company, and the grocery store do not perform their services free of charge, and so unfortunately neither can I.  All this justifies what I do in my mind, but the question still remains.  What benefit do we, those we love, society, the greater world around us, derive from a dedication to growth and progression in the sport of fly fishing?

I may have come up with an answer or at least a theory, and it was not my own.  While listening to a lecture from Alan Watts where he delves into these same questions and comes up with more questions.  What is the purpose of anything we do?  What is the end result?  We know that the end result is death.  No matter how hard we work, no matter how much wealth we store up for ourselves, no matter how much “impact” we have on the world; in the end we die and eventually, we are forgotten.  This is the natural order of things and as it should be.  If Watts was being honest, he didn’t come up with this philosophy on his own either.  I remember reading from the good book when I was just a child, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  If I understood Watts correctly he thought just as Christ did, and while I admittedly would not self identify as Christian, it’s hard for me to argue with Watts or Christ. Ive often contemplated this passage and came to the same question.  I understand that earthly treasures are essentally worthless; things break down, new toys loose their luster, we are always wanting something novel.  Our entire economy is built around this idea of novelty items.  We are encouraged when we feel low to go out and make a purchase.   We are taught to give no thought of tomorrow’s needs, but rather to consider today’s wants. Marketing has now become so clever that even when we do not feel low  and in need of new toys, it can create that low feeling in us and then prescribe the cure.

So what is does it mean to lay up ones treasures up in heaven?  Watts believed (again, if I interpreted him correctly) that it meant to find joy in experience, and that the purpose of life was simply to play.  To play is to find joy in your pursuit and progression within that joy.  We know this when we are children, it is innate in us. We wake every morning and seek out play.  It takes years of schooling, and indoctrination to beat this innate truth out of us and replace it with the lie of money and things and structure.  We resist it for a long time before finally giving in.  How many of us can remember Saturday mornings and summer vacations with friends?  Can we remember that feeling of freedom to learn about and engage in what ever we choose?  The freedom to play.  The thrill of discovery through play.  The dread of returning to the classroom where we were to sit still, read from the manual, and listen to the state approved authority drone on about a subject they were also neither passionate or excited about.  How many of us stared out the window and longed for play?  How many of us still do this very same thing?

Why do we sometimes feel guilt when we play?  When we pursue leisure and the thrill of learning through experience we often feel a tug from two different directions.  There are things that we still need to get done, and that we are not doing,  all those things that will actually never get done because no matter how much we do there will always be more to get done (this is the great con of the machine).  At the same time we feel the pull in the other direction, the tug of our childhood encouraging us, cajoling us, to engage in play once again, and to feel the joy and thrill of novel experience rather than novel things.

I suppose what I am trying to say is you and I both…are going to die.  Our collection of fly rods will sit in a corner and slowly be given or sold away.  Our reels will gather corrosion and dust and rust.  Our waders will dry rot and fall apart in the box.  The glues in our wading boots will break down and the felt soles will go the way of of our eternal souls, and fall away from the body. The memories of our fishing trips together with friends and good guides (also friends) will eventually fade as those earthly bodies pass on as well.  But rivers will still flow downstream towards the ocean, rains will still fall, trout will still face upstream, bass will still sit by a rock or under a log.  That world that we sought to understand through play, those waters we baptized ourselves in, those cool evenings full of mist and wonder that we consummated with; will still exist.  Heaven is here and now.

Experience, purchase if necessary for the experience, but experience.  Go live, go fish, go play.