ammon.azza.org

Warning, this blog is a downer. I'm not responsible for ruining your day.

Let me tell you about yesterday...

Things started the way they always start, though I could tell that I was pre-disposed to be in a melancholy mood. I did my first of many checks on the summitpost forums, and read into a thread about Nalgenes killing you. One guy was simply bringing up how bad it sucks to die from cancer. People would say something unrelated, and he would say they were dismissing how bad it sucks to die from cancer. Then they brought up statistics on how heart problems are the leading cause of death (and cited the CDC, so that's reliable). He then said "I do what I can to avoid both even though I know that by doing so I'm probably increasing my odds of dying of cancer when dying of a single heart attack is clearly preferable."

While I may reject the premise of what he said, that was rather grim...

So already, my predisposition to being melancholy was panning out well.

Today is May 18, 2008. I have lived 7796 days.

So what? What makes this arbitrary date special? What makes my age in days so special?

Spencer died on day 7797.

To clarify, I don't mean to say that I am going to die today. That would be a real downer. I intend on living for some time to come. It is merely an observation that I have lived as long as Spencer did. But this brings some questions to mind. I may have lived longer, but have I lived more? After having this thought come into my mind (when I calculated today's date a few weeks back), I did some thinking. I thought of many things that one might use to "calculate" how much a person has lived. Things that in the grand scheme of things really aren't important. I have a better job than he did. He had that old Mini Cooper, so my car isn't cooler than his. He was a much better rock climber than I am, but I have done much more mountaineering. He was on the verge of getting engaged.

He seemed so much older then than I feel now. I continually get thrown off by small things like "I own a coffee table? How in the world did my life lead up to me owning a coffee table?". Yet something seems missing in me. A kind of childishness that might lead someone to hang out with kids 3 and a half years younger than you.

A mantra of Spencer's was "Hope, Daydream, Live" which was a compilation of quotes he liked. Hope was from The Shawshank Redemptions tagline: "Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.", Daydream was from a quote by T.E. Lawrence:



I don't know the origins of "Live".

The mantra ended up on his headstone, and I have kept it as a personal reminder that all three points: Hoping, Daydreaming, and Living, are all very important. But today I was caught off guard by my own thoughts. I haven't been acting upon the mantra. And that is what needs to change. That is what day 7797 should be for me. The day I start living. For all I need to do is hope and daydream, and I will live.

Hoping for something better than I have will give me the strengths I need to try. Hopelessness is a trap that will make you never improve yourself because you cannot see a positive outcome to your struggles.

Daydreaming, or rather acting upon your daydreams as T.E. Lawrence suggests, is very powerful. So what if I will never do 90% of the things I daydream? I was reading Ed Viesturs book "No Shortcuts To The Top" last winter and through it I found many things to daydream about. I really want to go to Nepal, and climb some big mountain. I got swept away, putting myself on the mountain, living adventure and all the rest. But it didn't last long. I got caught up in the reality of the situation, that the costs are so high that I would never practically be able to do these things. And the daydreaming stopped. Well, I need to start it up. I need to daydream as many things as I can, and even if I can only act upon a sliver of those daydreams, how much more will I live? I contend: a lot.

So those are my thoughts. No spectacular insights I would suggest, just a few ideas. Here's to 7797 more!

When I saw the headline for this article, I immediately slapped my forehead:

"Low Levels of Vitamin D Spell Trouble for Breast Cancer Patients"

Why would I slap my forehead over something like that? Because of where Vitamin D comes from. It is produced in our skin. Vital in the production of Vitamin D is UV rays from sunlight.

WOAH! UV RAYS?!?! Those evil things give you cancer!!!

Also, they apparently are vital in the production of a vitamin (hormone?) that prevents cancer.

Once again, I loudly give my point that I will not be paranoid about every article that comes out claiming that something is going to kill us. I'm still drinking from my cancer bottles by the way.

I'm thinking that if I leave work a half hour late on Mondays, 15 minutes late Tuesdays, and then 7 minutes late Wednesdays and Thursdays.. I can leave work an hour early on Friday! It does fit my personality to shift the work week a little bit toward the beginning, get it over with so to say. I'd be well on my way home as I write this if I had done that this week. How nice does that sound?

Gotta go to bed early tonight so I can have energy for tomorrows climb. Stay tuned.