The Sledgehammer

"Like a motley crew of deviants, we’d go out into the woods with day packs and sledgehammers..."

Photo by Moritz Mentges on Unsplash

My favorite part about Christmas was never the presents under the tree. Generally, you always knew, or at least had a pretty good idea, of what you were getting, so the element of surprise was rarely there at full power. The stocking, however... that’s where you got to see the real creativity, the real effort, in my opinion. All this to say, I love surprises.

Which is also why I love rocks.
Yes... rocks.

You ever look at a boulder and wonder what’s inside it?
Underneath it?
See a mountain and start imagining what it would look like if you could just... smash through it?
Just to see what secrets it may or may not have held?

I did.

Hell, I still do even now.

Fortunately, I had some friends that felt the same way.
Like a motley crew of deviants, we’d go out into the woods with day packs and sledgehammers, adventuring out to appreciate nature in a particularly unique way.

Smashing rocks.

There was no science behind it. Just boys doing boy things, having fun, talking shit, and celebrating whenever we found something cool. Given how low our standards really were for entertainment at the time, that was pretty frequent.

But every so often, we’d find a real prize: a small quartz or amethyst geode, maybe a surprise vein of pyrite or the like.

I think back to these times often, because how often do we overcomplicate things that need not be so complicated? Throwing in all these extra steps that just serve as hurdles keeping us away from our goals, or simply doing what we want to do?

Sometimes, it’s as simple as just getting that sledgehammer.

And smashing some rocks.

–KC