priceless

Some things are too valuable to measure. Priceless is the term — they’re too sacred and profound to demean with a simple dollar figure no matter how high that figure may be. Dollars are a poor measure of life.

How can you put a dollar figure on the experience of waking up to early morning on a northern lake, the mists galloping across the waters, and the wild laughter of a loon echoing from shore to shore?

How can you measure the worth of hiking around a bend in the trail and encountering a bull moose literally nose to nose?

How valuable is the experience of spending days with a band of mountain goats, and having them accept you as a being who belongs there, albeit a strange one?

Calculate the dollar value of a camp by a small mountain lake at 7000 feet, the sun crashing behind the surrounding peaks, the sound of silence and solitude accompanying you, the Milky Way filling the sky as your thoughts settle down to wilderness time. Calculate that for me — I sure can’t.

These experiences exist far beyond the measure of mere money. So far beyond that our incessant translation of the hours of our lives into dollars is so abstract as to seem ridiculous, and that’s as it should be. That’s why they’re so vital and blood stirring. And priceless.