I was working on a remote island in the Southeast Passage of Alaska. I pulled my boat up to a beach where I had work to do nearby. As I secured the boat a sweet older woman came onto the beach, surprising me. She looked like she should be walking out of a quilting store instead of a dark forest.

We talked and she told me that she was visiting her son in the camp he set up just off the beach, under the hemlocks. He was off getting provisions that morning, so she seemed happy to talk a little more honestly than she would have otherwise.

He was recently a Wall Street broker who was there on that beach to “burn out” the greed. It was his plan all along, to work in the pig sty for a period of time, to make a certain amount of money, and then completely change so that he could enjoy the rest of his life.

The woman was clearly sad and uncomfortable. The uncomfortable part was obvious, she was not the outdoorsy type, but I wondered if she understood the sadness. So I asked, “you know it won’t work, right?” She said “Yes. He will just project the greed into something else.”

I left her there to get to my work, but I will always remember the look she had on her face as she said goodbye. She had just become aware of being trapped in the wilderness with a fanatic. It was probably true her entire life, but it was this situation that forced her to see it.