It's Nice to Have Eyes
one last ride
A few years ago I was heli-boarding in the North of Sweden. Yes, that is where you take a helicopter up a mountain and snowboard down it and yes, I do kinda shred. Unfortunately on one particular day of the trip I was not my most shred’y self.
I had plenty of anti-shred juice in the form of beers the evening before, taking the time to celebrate whatever Swedes celebrate in the beginning of May. My body was fuelled for a slow hungover day eating takeout in my bed but instead I had an early morning helicopter while wearing avalanche gear.
After a few runs I had shaken off some of my headache and was reminded of the gift I possessed for all aquatic affairs, even those on frozen surfaces. In snowboarding you can spend a season searching for one run like the runs we would do all morning. Heli-skiing is the most beautiful form of pay-to-win.
I found my feet and started riding closer to how I normally would. Still feeling quite slow I decided to do a small backside 180 off a little rock. In a coherent state I’d give myself about a 99% chance of landing this pathetic little twist, but no coherence could be found in the static of my brain.
I did land it but I was so lazy and broken that a small wobble was enough for me to roll rather than expending the effort required to stay standing. This would prove poor decision making on my end, if one can call accepting a foregone conclusion as a decision.
As I had done a thousand times before, I rolled forward over my shoulder, putting the weight through my elbow and popped right back up in one smooth motion. So smooth in fact, were it not for the very loud sound of my elbow making contact with a rock just under the surface, one might have had no suspicion at all that something was wrong.
Asked if I was okay, I replied that it’s a bit numb but should be fine. The numbness lingered longer than I wanted it to. As we made it further down the mountain I decided to take a pause.
A deep breath
I stopped and stood still on a beautiful mountainside in the arctic circle. I breathed in the clean air and tried to savour every last ray of sunshine bouncing off the fluffy snow. I did this because under my three layers of clothing I felt that my arm was beginning to be wet. Even in my depreciated state, I knew this was not good.
I was not able to assess the damage until I got to the helicopter at the bottom, and frankly I had absolutely zero interest in knowing what lay beneath my sleeve until I had finished the run.
But something wonderful happened as a result. I noticed everything, in the pursuit of distraction and the knowledge that what lay ahead was unknown, I became fully aware of my circumstance. I no longer took for granted that there would be a next day, or a next run. This may be the last time in my life that I snowboard. One last ride.
As I made my way down I smiled broadly. I thought about how unbelievably lucky I was to be able to do such things with such great people. This was the first trip that I was able to take my older brother on as a result of some financial success.
He had planned and I had paid. I thought about all the incredibly fortunate series of events that transpired and led to this moment. This was the most memorable run of the trip for me. I remembered everything because I knew I was on the precipice of a new, unknown reality. One where I had no idea if I was going to do any more snowboarding.
The final few hundred metres I went straight towards the helicopter, singing and soaking up every last drop of wonder that the landscape had to provide. Having reached the helicopter it was finally time to assess the damage.
I was calm and accepting of whatever might come. Pulling up my sleeve felt fine and somewhat relieving. Everything seemed fine, until I bent my elbow in order to get a better look, then everything was not fine. I was no longer somewhat relieved.
I will spare you the gory details. But the peace that I had found in being many miles away from the world quickly turned into fear of being many miles away from a hospital.
The solitude of the mountains is much more appealing when you don’t have a gaping hole in your arm. The cool and calm nature of my voice did not fool anyone who saw the translucent colour of my face. There would be no more snowboarding for me that trip.
In the end I got six stitches in my elbow and a great story. That trip would also go on to change the course of my life as an inflection point, but what stuck with me was that last run. I still think about it sometimes, in fact right now as I reflect my heart is full. I can feel the cold air and my cheeks tightening.
Complacency
How could I be so happy while dripping blood and knowing a potential trip of a lifetime was soon nearing an early end. I can seriously remember every second of that final run down the mountain and I’d take six stitches again just for that same feeling again in my life.
I think it all stems from complacency. We presume that tomorrow will be like today. We treat everything and every state of being as a permanent fact of life, without realising everything is transient and we are not entitled to anything. Believing tomorrow we will be presented with the same opportunities as today means we never have to seize the day.
I was at a really nice restaurant in Italy a few nights ago and my girlfriend’s dad told us a story. He pointed to a paraplegic man being fed his dinner at the front entrance and said:
‘That is the owner. A few years ago he celebrated his 50th birthday here with all his friends, the restaurant was doing amazing and life was good. His friends all pitched in and bought him an electric bike for his birthday. He drove it home later that night while drunk and got hit by a truck and now he can’t move or speak.’
Don’t Wait
Something about this story struck me, he was doing great at 50 and then his life got completely destroyed? I’m not sure if it was my youth but I always presumed once you made money or were successful your path was paved. You’ve done the hard work and you get to presume that the good days will roll in.
In reality the same is true for everyone, we really have no idea if tomorrow will come at all and we can certainly not be sure if we will be as capable of seizing it as we are today. Stephen Hawking was a healthy young adult until symptoms started setting in at 21. There were many billionaires who had life essentially solved until 2008 sent them into bankruptcy.
We often use facts like ‘Warren Buffett didn’t make his first million until he was 30’ or ‘Morgan Freeman didn’t get his first big acting gig until his 40s’ because it inspires hope for the future. I am a massive advocate that hope for the future is critical and everything remains possible so long as we breathe, but it should never come at the cost of justifying inaction today.
They say you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, and I think that’s why the moments like my elbow kissing a rock are so important. It is moments like these that take away our complacency of tomorrow. Our belief that our life will continue as it is without interruption gets shattered and in the process we are forced to see what we have.
It is life’s version of forcing our head into the metaphorical shit we just took to teach us a lesson. As in many of the best lessons in life, nothing has really changed at all except our perspective. If your girlfriend texts you ‘we need to talk’, it is only then you realise just how bad of a partner you have been. How much you took for granted.
On the precipice we truly understand ourselves. When we are faced with the unknown, we can finally see the beauty in all that is known in our lives. None of what I’ve written today is unique knowledge, we all know we’re going to die. We all know that life can change, but so rarely do we really take stock and consider how much we have to be grateful for.
It’s Nice to Have Eyes
Death is easy because no adversity is created. The better practice is understanding all the things we take for granted. Accidents out of your control can take away your sense of the world, sight, hearing, touch. Things completely unknown to you could threaten your ability to navigate the world on two legs.
It is only after something gets in our eyes do we appreciate how fucking great it is to not have anything in our eyes. I wish I could go back to before I raved my way into tinnitus to appreciate how great true silence is.
I will never be able to appreciate perfect silence again. I lived 27 years in complete ignorance of a blessing I only paid attention to once I no longer had it. As I type this hunched over on a chair in an Airbnb, I’m sure one day I’ll think back to the time my back was able to cope with such a state.
If you are able to rest in perfect silence, know that you’re living in a world I long for. No matter how much money or good fortune I have, I will never possess the gift that you have access to each moment of every day. You could have lived a lifetime without taking a moment to think about how lucky you are, without this reminder.
The same is true for everything else that could ever happen that hasn’t. I am incredibly lucky to be able to write this, just as you are incredibly lucky to be able to read it. Let’s hope we can do the same next week, but let us never trick ourselves into thinking that it’s guaranteed.
P.S.
The day after writing this my mum was admitted to hospital. It was a cosmic reminder of the impermanence of everything. When we are struggling for reasons to be happy, we should look no further than the health of our loved ones. We take for granted that the people around us will always be there, but one of the few certainties of life is that they will not.