How we stand atop Everest, whether we realize it or not
BACK AT THE start of March I spent a weekend in an igloo. It was an extraordinary experience. In fact, ‘extraordinary’ isn’t hyperbole (for once) but a gross understatement. So much happened. Every single moment was rich and full. The ‘meaning’ of the weekend was immense. I returned home feeling physically tired but also renewed and energized as though I’d been away for weeks. I returned bearing more memories than a mere two-night trip ought to have been able to provide. The weekend was, to put it plainly, something else… and that’s an understatement. It was stand-apart-knock-your-socks-off-extra-ordinary.
In an ideal world, I’d describe every moment that occurred. I’d tell ‘the story’ of the weekend. But, alas, there simply isn’t available space. In fact, if I were to properly recount every detail, nuance and layer of meaning, you (poor reader) would be stuck reading this post for hours…
But worry not. I’ll spare you that!
Instead, I’m going to focus on one big take-away: a thought that occurred after the trip was done. It’s an idea/insight/observation (call it what you want) that applies not only to this specific trip or to other visits to nature but also to every moment in life. It’s an insight that (I think) is relevant to every moment we live, no matter how good, bad, ordinary or extra ordinary. It’s an observation that (I think) adds value and meaning to even the dullest or worst moments we find ourselves living.
Basically, it’s this: there are no single moments, no stand-apart moments. Not really. Instead, there is only ‘one moment after another’, and they are all equally important.
Let me explain…
Often, when we live through one of life’s extraordinary single moments, we think of it as extraordinary because of the specific self-contained details of the moment itself. We see it as separate from other moments, disconnected from everything that came before and after it. The single moment stands out because of what it is in itself.
My journey to the igloo, for example, could be seen that way. Consider the details. Snow was falling hard: a swirling mass of flakes whispering and wafting down from the heavens. The forest I was passing through was softened, shrouded, hushed, and mesmerizingly beautiful. Progress through the fresh snow was physically hard, but in a positive using-one’s-body-the-way-it’s-meant-to-be-used way. The company being kept (with the one-and-only ‘Igloo Ed’) was as good as mountain company can be. The weekend’s goal – to build an igloo, sleep within it for two nights, and share the experience with a friend – was as attractive and worthwhile as any weekend’s goal could be. And the location – a remote corner of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park – could hardly have been better.
All things considered, every element was at the top end of what one might want it to be. And so it continued all weekend, even when a dash of good old-fashioned ‘type two fun’ entered the equation.
(The type two fun, on this occasion, was challenging snow conditions which meant we didn’t finish building the igloo until after midnight. Friday’s dinner was eaten at 1:30 a.m. Saturday morning! And the type two fun was roaring spindrift-laden winds that severely limited our planned wanderings. And the type two fun was forcing myself to remain social even when what I really wanted late on the second day was peace, quiet, solitude and sleep!)
But… even with the difficulties of the igloo build, and the tiredness it led to, and the discomforts of brutal winds, and the challenges of working outside in a snowstorm, even with all of that, how could the trip have failed to be extraordinary? After all, it involved an extraordinary location and extraordinary conditions. It involved an extraordinary shelter. And it was spent with an extraordinary man. If it hadn’t been extraordinary that would have been extraordinary!
And yet… it wasn’t all about the specific self-contained details of the weekend. It wasn’t only about ‘the single moment’.
It was, rather, about the single moment and about every other moment that had preceded it. It was about an entire lifetime of moments. They were what made the ‘single moment’ of the weekend stand out as though it were a summit experience. The extraordinariness lay in the context.
Take the falling snow. In itself it was special. But it was elevated to a higher level of special because it was occurring during a winter with only minimal snowfall. In an ordinary winter, it would have been just another snowstorm. But in this unprecedented winter of warmth and drought it was pretty much a one-off. It was the peak snowfall and peak snowpack depth of the entire season. Plus, for me, it most definitely was a one-off. It was my first (and only) high country snowstorm of the season. Finally, ‘The Winter That Never Was’ was being ‘winter as it should be’. This was why the snowstorm was extraordinary. Context utterly altered what it meant.
Then, take our activity: snowshoeing though a forest pulling heavy sleds (pulks) behind us. This in itself was pretty damn special, all the immediate sensations and emotions of it. But context, again, raised it. I’m fifty-six now. I know many people my age (and younger) who couldn’t physically do what I was doing. (There are even more people Igloo Ed’s age who couldn’t. In fact, very few who can!) Equally, there are many who wouldn’t have the confidence, experience or knowledge to do it safely or enjoy doing it. But I was able to snowshoe uphill through the wintry wilderness because I’ve lived my entire adult life in a particular way. I’ve stayed active, deliberately. I’ve eaten deliberately. I’ve made getting into nature a deliberate habit. I’ve made year-round mountain travel a central part of my life. Sure, I’ve been incredibly fortunate in life, and that plays a massive part, but being able to snowshoe into the wild was a consequence and even a ‘reward’ for everything I’ve deliberately invested and sacrificed. It was only possible because of deliberate choices made. This context changed it completely.
Then there was the location, the remarkable landscape of Rocky Mountain National Park, a minimally-developed realm of forests, treeline lakes and rugged soaring peaks. As a unique place the Park is extraordinary. But it was even more extraordinary to me because of context, because of how it compared with where I grew up: the unnatural suburbs of a big city. I’ve now been wandering wild places for thirty-eight years, but I will never be able to take any of them for granted or forget where I came from. Plus, this specific Colorado location was also extra extraordinary to me because I’ve spent twenty-five years getting to know the details and nature of Colorado’s high country. It was extraordinary because my relationship with the entire range is now thousands of hours old. Every single relationship is built experience by experience, brick by brick. Every single visit and moment – every single second spent in company with a place (or person) – adds another brick to the relationship, growing it as though building a relationship castle, or perhaps a relationship ‘Everest’. This was the context of my visit. It wasn’t merely ‘a’ single stand-alone visit. It wasn’t merely ‘a’ remarkable place. It was yet another brick added to all the bricks that had been added before.
Similarly, there was my relationship with Igloo Ed. I’ve known the man now for ten years. We’ve shared a good few trips, not all of them focused on igloos. Our relationship castle was already many bricks strong, and the weekend added several bricks more. The shared experiences we already had, the knowledge of one another already possessed, the appreciation of what each wanted from the weekend, the mutual respect – all of this totally altered the context of our shared weekend. It wasn’t only about ‘the’ weekend. It was about every previous shared moment we’d had.
And also, there was the context of company itself. As with ‘where’ I came from neither will I ever forget ‘who’ I once was: a stuttering outcast with minimal self-belief who once spent most of his time trying to be alone. But there I was, deliberately in company and genuinely treasuring this very thing I’d once gone to great lengths to avoid. We were laughing – the weekend’s running jokes only grew funnier. We were watching out for one another, supporting one another. We were sharing openly and honestly. We were both giving. Our comradeship was growing tighter. Our friendship was being strengthened. And I was being myself, something that would once have been impossible. An entire lifetime of struggle and growth underpinned what the company meant.
Well, I could go on. In far more detail. But I’m sure you get the picture. Perhaps what I’m trying to say is so obvious most of you are rolling your eyes. Perhaps it’s ‘overthinking’ at its worst. But I hadn’t fully considered the context of ‘single moments’ before or ‘why’ they mean what they do… and maybe at least one other person reading this hasn’t, either. So, that’s why I’m sharing. Because the altered perspective that this can bring can add extra value and meaning to all the moments we live, not just the soaring ‘single moments’.
In summary then, here’s what I mean: when one is having one’s next ‘lousy’ moment, one can find value in it, because it isn’t ‘only’ a lousy moment. It’s also the foundation for the next ‘great’ moment. And when one meets a person or visits a place for the first (or the hundredth) time it doesn’t matter if the meeting is fleeting or shallow. It’s also a brick in a relationship. Give it time, show a little patience, and eventually a castle might be built.
As I see it, the idea that ‘every single moment matters’ prompts a huge paradigm shift in how one sees the entirety of one’s life and every moment within it. It makes it clear that every moment we live sits atop an Everest of previous moments. Or perhaps that should be an Everest of ‘precious’ moments. Because they all count. There are no stand-apart moments. There are no ‘ordinary’ moments.
There is only one moment after another. There is only one summit moment atop an entire mountain-lifetime of previous moments. And every single one of them has value.
Well, that’s how I see it. And I find this perspective thrilling.
