Cognitive Dissonance and Dirt

I wouldnʼt be happy again until I stabled that 2017 Mustang GT or I accepted my current financial restrictions and suffered back to the consonance of, and really the gratitude for what dripped a bit of oil on my driveway, a 1998 Montero.

Weʼve all been there, some more regular than others, that cognitive dissonance that keeps us akimbo until weʼve reconciled with reality. I do it with suspension and lift kits, lockers and synthetic winch lines, RTTs and BFGs. And we know what it looks like when the cognitive dissonance wins; that lifted, powerstroking, mud-crawler with nary a desert pin stripe.

Itʼs persistent. Itʼs the noise in your head when sheʼs talking during commercial breaks. Itʼs tucked in the pages of that off-road magazine resting on the toilet tank. Itʼs even inundated the bookmarks on your browser. Taller, wider, stronger, higher, faster; the very desires that make us want to gear up germinate more in ego than in that place where natural germination happens – dirt.

The day will come when my rig is lifted and shod with rubber rivaling a back hoe, and though Iʼll admit thereʼs a bit of ego to be satisfied in their installation, the more important reason for the build is the not-so terra firma of Southern Utah.

In a traverse of the Grand Staircase, from Escalante to the Romana Mesa overlooking Lake Powell, we navigated 245 million years of geology from lava fields to limestone. Thatʼs about 32.9 million years per gallon of fossil fuel. And we did it stock, save for a plus-one tire size and a set of spacers to push them out to the corners.

Now, itʼs sandstone, mudstone, and basalt. Itʼs gypsum and siltstone and nothing to do with the idea of stone in the wakes of sand veining their way through the Staircase. This is the reason for my dissonance, the foundation of our exploration, the cognitive state of curiosity of what lies ahead of the next mesa.

The consonance for which, the harmony, is found in that relationship between gear and ground, a synthesis of technology and tectonics. Having explored and perilously reached the mechanical limits of our rig, this synthesis of mods is prioritized by clearance, traction and recovery, the focus being on the expedition rather than the exhibit.

The Mustang doesnʼt matter any more. The page has turned to sunrises and vistas, the plateaus, cliffs, flats and terraces of the Paunsaugunt, the Skutumpah, the Shinarump, and the Kaibab.

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