It feels like 2024 has passed in the blink of an eye. My last blog post was in February, and now somehow here we in are in late December. For me, routine has a habit of making time race forward while feeling almost stagnant.
For much of 2024, I have been in a music phase I would describe as “Mountain Goats Revival”. I have been getting lost in The Mountain Goats enormous discography, dusting off old classics and listening to some newer releases I missed. When I first came across them, in my early 20s, I don’t think I was able to appreciate the full depth of John Darnielle’s story telling. I hadn’t lived enough to connect with many of the songs he produced and passed many of them by. I was too naïve to appreciate the genius lurking behind the eclectic stories of foreign objects, drug addicts, classical historical figures and Kawasaki motorbikes.
One of the albums that has stuck with me the most this year is Transcendental Youth. It opens with Amy (Spent Gladiator Part 1) and the lyrics:
“Do every stupid thing that makes you feel alive,
Do every stupid thing to try to drive the dark away”
Since my self inflicted burnout forced me to acknowledge the futility of chasing fulfillment by pushing my bodies limits I have struggled to fill the space left behind. It introduced a hollowness, a brittleness to my existence, vulnerable to collapse.
In recent times, I have found my self pacing around the house in discontent, only to realise my angst was arising merely from boredom. A feeling I don’t remember having, as an adult, circa 2020. There was always so much to do. I was always lagging behind the high ideals I was chasing, there was barely time to pause and breathe let alone be ‘bored’. Boredom is the enemy of someone with a brain wired like mine. It is important to keep the monkeys running my conscious experience occupied, less they create trouble. However, I fear becoming a person who fills their days with meaningless tasks to keep their inner demons at bay only to wake up 10 or 20 years later and wonder what it was all for. I cannot risk those sorts of regrets.
At the same time I have been drained of motivation to try hard, at anything. I have have struggled to find the meaningful activities to occupy the circus in my brain and have dissuaded any ambition, citing the nihilism I had to accept to learn to slow down and to recover. I have been afraid to hang on tightly to anything for fear of letting go. So I have bumbled along in this state of limbo like a Spent Gladiator. Just doing what I ever I can to keep myself in the here and now. Just staying alive but not really sure how to thrive.
To address some of my lurking discontent I’ve started giving myself little challenges in my day to day. In my head I joke about it “enriching my enclosure”. Like I am a wild animal in captivity. The tasks, such as using my left hand to brush my teeth, seemed to be enough just to stimulate something in my brain and only require slightly more effort. I presumed because I was conscious of the games I was playing with my brain it wouldn’t work. However, I think some of these feeling arise from the subconscious place and in a way can be tricked by conscious actions. Perhaps, there really is something in considering how to occupy your (somewhat) domesticated self as you would a pet or zoo animal.
This more banal action has been complemented by two little glimmers of light that sparkled in my ski touring season and combined to leave me ending the year feeling more content than I have in a while. Two instances where I felt the drive again. The powerful pull of want and desire to achieve an outcome outweighing rational thought and more importantly, without falling back in to the clutches of fatigue.
The first was skiing the Grand Couloir (GC) at the Remarkables. I had been back in New Zealand less than 24hrs when I found myself booting up the ever-narrowing gut. All logical thought the day before had told me not to set my alarm for 5.30am. I had just spent 20hrs in cars, airports, and planes and had perhaps slept maybe 4hrs total. But the weather window timed exactly with my departure was closing. I had 24hrs to get out and about, or resign myself to endlessly refreshing the long-range forecast in hope of another opportunity. This wouldn’t have been a question for a previous version of myself. For Felicity V.2.0.2.4 it was agonizing. Would it be worth it? Was it ever worth it?
But in the end my FOMO managed to over come my desire to snooze my alarm. I would at least go and see but I refused to set any kind of goals for the day my one of my current tactics to “manage my expectations”. Which, more or less means, I expect to turn around some point before the top of the objective in mind. Once we got to the top of the icy skin track above the Elevator Chutes I looked across at the days real objective and that mind set was reinforced. The GC looked intimidating and I felt like a space cadet.
But for whatever reason, maybe because I had just spend a week in hotels and governments buildings in developing country, I managed to push down the voice in my head suggesting we bail to something easier because “what does it matter?”. Less than two hours later we were at the top of the GC poised to ski down. Normally in these moments I get overwhelmed by the adrenaline. I had built this line up to be scary and committing. But the snow conditions were great and I felt confident in my skiing and in myself. It’s like the idea of falling didn’t even enter my mind. Maybe I was just too jet lagged to have the energy to invest in being anxious. The ski down was 100% fun and once we got to the other side of Lake Altar I was fizzing.
The answers to the questions I agonised over the night before were easily answered in hindsight. Was it worth it? Yes. Yes it was.
The other instance was skiing the amazing 1500m run off Mt Hamilton. A 3000m peak above the Tasman Glacier. It was one of the biggest days I have had on my skis post-2020 and certainly the hottest. The north facing aspects cooking in the mid-Nov sun. I was feeling well-done with 500m of vertical still to climb. Logical monkey told me to wait at the saddle. There would still be a good 1000m ski run to be had, the party I was with would be faster to summit without me, and the objective danger of the small rocks (which could turn in to big rocks at any point) wizzing down the nearby rock faces as they baked in the sun could be avoided.
But like a dog with a bone I couldn’t quite let it go. The challenging skiing ahead luring me higher until I was balancing precariously on the thin snow ridge above the crux couloir delicately putting my skis on, terrified of losing one. On previous committing ski lines I have made the mistake of listening to the monkeys in by brain before dropping in. This time I rushed to make my first turn before they could catch up with their negative jibber-jabber. Once my edges had engaged on the steep surface it was all instinct and in no time I was out the bottom of the crux hooping and hollering. The rest of the descent was pure bliss in consistent corn and we arrived back at Darwin corner with in 37mins of being on the summit ridge with a soul filling party ski down the lower Darwin.
These two outings have made me feel like there might be some life in this gladiator yet and while the 2025 ski season seems a long way off I am motived to keep as much fitness as I can through the summer. We’ve already been keeping up the exposure training and carrying heavy loads around the hills in Fiordland and Ahuriri respectively, even without the incentive of a ski descent. Hopefully the motivation for these trips remains. I have even been so bold as to set the East Face of Aoraki as my background on my laptop, a little reminder of what their is still to strive for. Let’s see what 2025 can bring….