Something draws you to a place, or pushes you towards it. You're there because of something, you are where you are because of the life that you have led. 

It's beyond taking that road trip with your brother, or seeing pictures of it online. You are there because something has spoken to you, has crafted your existence to be there at that moment.

Was it your sense of adventure, crafted from years of watching the world flow by, separated by  a thin pane of glass. Was it something you are running away from, fleeing what you know for the ordered chaos of the wild? Or were you running towards something greater than yourself, so taken up with the unknown that you were drawn to such unfathomable beauty by the forces of nature themselves.

Whatever it is, you're there, and you can barely soak in the splendor of what is around you. As you sit in such a wild place, as I had, staring out at the majesty of jagged peaks, navy-blue lakes fed by melting snow, and the vibrant life of the wildflowers beginning to bloom, you drift and think.

You think about why you're there, and not in such an existential way as otherworldly powers, or the big bang, or whatever you believe in. It's more of how did you wind up in a place like Cloud Peak Wilderness, Wyoming. Or, why do you find yourself nestled among the wildflowers, watching the clouds roll by from a mountain valley. Why does this wild place feel like home?

These are the places to think, to look back and figure out how you got to that point. Looking back may not always feel like the best option, but knowing how you got to a place, for better or for worse, helps you appreciate it more.

Just because you were running from or towards something, doesn't take away meaning from that moment.

Maybe it is one of those things, or a combination of all of them, but it's up to you to figure that out. Maybe that is the answer we all seek, just being here, just learning who we are and who we want to be. What drives us towards a place, isn't just those demons that give us purpose. It is the purpose, it is the reason.

That could be it, it could be that the answer to that age old riddle is the very question we all ask ourselves each night before we go to sleep.

Why am I here?