Success

While many of the first settlers of the Adirondacks would have claimed the land to be a loss, a region that would yield failure instead of crops, the fact that the park has proved to be so hostile towards agricultural progress is in fact a success for our society. However, many people would not automatically assume so.

We define success by how much we can profit from something. When we consider profit we are often driven by a promise of our own gain. This pursuit creates a mindset where we focus on ourselves, and not our role in society as a whole.  In this way we have become individualists in how we think and act.

The Adirondacks sets the stage for a new form of thinking, allowing us to see that we can be successful without exploiting our environment. In this way we must reevaluate our notion of success and profit.

To start, the legacy of loss in the Adirondacks allowed it to remain unsettled and essentially undisturbed by mankind. While there are a few that continue to live off the land, the park remains for the most part, wild. In a world where population growth and overconsumption are threatening our resources, this is one of the last remaining pieces of land that has remained sheltered from the harm we have done to the rest of the world. If the Adirondacks had not proved so hostile to the first settlers of the land, we would have exploited the land just as we have done with the rest of the planet. In this way we must consider our own personal loss of profit in the greater scheme of things.

Additionally, we can look at some of the inhabitants of the Adirondacks to gain a new perspective of success. The abolitionist John Brown settled struggled with the rough conditions of the Adirondack land for many years. However, Brown was not concerned with the potential monetary profit of the land. And while he failed in his efforts to create farming communities of fugitive slaves, he was able to help many runaways escape to freedom. Instead of viewing the Adirondacks as a resource for his own profit, Brown sought out the unsettled land as a route for the Underground Railroad. His efforts brought success for, not only himself, as a fervent supporter of human rights, but also the fugitive slaves that he helped bring to freedom.

Brown’s success was only possible because the land he was working in was so uncharted and uninhabited. It was a blessing in disguise that the Adirondacks was considered so unprofitable, for it allowed figures such as John Brown to become successful in their own ways.

Works Cited

Banks, Russell. Cloudsplitter: A Novel. New York, NY: HarperFlamingo, 1998. Print.