mike the mountain

Holy crap has it really been nearly three months since I was on here? I need to start trying to form coherent thoughts that take more than 140 characters to elucidate.

There’s a thought that’s been rattling around in my head for a while and I need to get it out. I don’t want to, because it’s depressing and unhealthy and generally something on which I don’t like focusing, but at this point it’s become like holding in a fart on a crowded bus.

I’m 33 as I write this. Let’s say, for the sake of simple math, I live to be 93. As well, for simplicity’s sake and a touch of optimism, let us assume I am able to travel and function and enjoy my faculties right up to the end. That gives me 60 years. 720 months. A little less than 22,000 days. Most people would say that sounds like a lot. To me, it is a terrifyingly, infinitesimally small amount of time.

There is something like 195 countries in the world. I used to consider myself fairly well-traveled, fortunate enough to grow up in a family with the means and desire to see the world. But when I really think about it, I’ve maybe visited 8 actual different independent nations (E.g., Canada, USA) . Some for only a day, which can hardly be considered a true experience of the culture. That leaves 187 countries in which I’ve never set foot. If I want to see them all, that means I need to average just over 3 new countries a year, for the rest of my life. This year, our big travel plans are Vancouver. Maybe, if we have a really good year, Mexico in the winter. Those will be great trips, but I still haven’t eaten a-ping in Cambodia or wrestled a zebu in Madagascar. It is a 100% impossibility for any one person to experience every culture the world has to offer, or will offer. And some days it genuinely pisses me off.

Here is Wikipedia’s list of best-selling books.

Here’s Time’s ALL TIME 100 best English-language novels.

Here are 100 Must-Read Books for the Essential Man’s Library.

Here are the 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written.

Here are 1001 books you MUST READ BEFORE YOU DIE.

I love to read. Most books take me a long time to get through; I usually only read a few pages at a time before going to sleep. Let’s say I read 6 books a year (which is probably optimistic). That means I will likely read approximately 360 more books before I die. Even if I double, or triple my reading rate, how many books is that? If I just decide to read all 1001 books (BEFORE I DIE), I’ll need to average about 16 a year. More than one per month. Just for those “classics” that “everyone” “should” read. No room for small-time, self-published books that I might love, that I might connect with on a deep personal level. No cult-y, off-beat stuff that no critic would ever consider essential reading, but that I might thoroughly enjoy. Comics? I’ve read Watchmen, the only one that ever seems to show up on these lists. I just finished re-reading the whole Transmetropolitan series; one of my absolute favourite stories and characters from any media. Which “best” novel must I give up so I can finish reading The Walking Dead? Or the next Dark Tower novel? Again, it is a 100% impossibility for any one person to experience every piece of literature the world has to offer, or will offer. And some days it genuinely pisses me off.

(This is becoming a very negative post, and I apologize for that, but for some reason these thoughts of mortality and lost experiences have been stuck in my head for a while, and I’m really hoping that this will exercise those demons.)

I often share this personal maxim with friends: “You haven’t had your favourite meal yet.” I mean it in the sense of “You don’t know if you’ll like it until you try it.” I believe that in a broad sense, also more literally there is so much food out there to try in the world, that (statistically speaking), you probably never will get to try what would be your favourite meal. That upsets me. There is more music and movies and games and art that has been created and will be created than can ever be heard or watched or played or experienced. That upsets me. But it also motivates me.

I crave new experiences. When I visit a new restaurant, and there is something on the menu that I don’t already know what it will taste like, I have to try it. If I’m going somewhere new, I’m going to seek out things unique to that place, experiences to have that I haven’t had before, or won’t be able to have elsewhere. This is a vital part of my life. At least I want it to be. But like so many people, so much of my life is safe and sedate, rote and routine. This is a conscious and accepted choice; I want financial and familial success, stability at the core of my life, and a future certain enough for me to take greater risks along the fringes. I live where I live and work where I work because I believe it likely to lead me to a place of financial means and flexible time enough to do many of those adventures that I crave, and to do them with people I love and a family to grow with. There are people who make different choices, and I am grateful to know of them. I may not be able to experience everything the world has to offer, but I can experience so much more vicariously through the sharing of others’.

OK, thank you Internet, for letting me get this off my chest. Writing it did what I hoped it would: get me to break the mental feedback loop of focusing on all the things I won’t get to enjoy in this world, and instead fire me up once again about all the things that I will! One final extra-nerdy thought: we level up by gaining EXPERIENCE; don’t let your life become a grind.

(TL;DR – Try the special.)

What an awesome year.  Even though by some measures it wasn’t quite the year I had hoped for, there’s never a bad time in the world of Mike.

One unfortunate thing that I allowed to affect almost everything in ’08 was my shoulder injury.  In February I had what seemed like a very minor fall while snowboarding that ended up dislocating my shoulder and tearing my rotator cuff.  I have NEVER had any kind of injury take so long to fully heal!  I’m still not at 100%.  The toll this took on my usual fun and games was catastrophic: couldn’t go snowboarding for the rest of the winter, couldn’t golf at all during the summer, had to drop out of a marathon training program (still managed to run a 1/2 marathon), couldn’t wear a backpack with any weight so no overnight hiking, couldn’t do any of the normal physical activities that I usually enjoy (weightlifting, rollerblading, squash, swimming, etc.) and, as important, that keep me in any kind of healthy condition.  End result is me being in the absolute worst shape of my life: fat, weak, and pretty dang pathetic.

Enough!  That’s the other thing I let that injury do for me all year: gave me an excuse to be a whiny lazy bitch, eat badly, not do the exercise I could do, etc.  Starting TODAY, I’m back to eating well and working my a$$ off.

One goal I thoroughly enjoyed surpassing was writing at least one blog post a week.  I managed to put up 62 posts in 2008, some of which actually involved original thought!

The big highlight vacation was a roadtrip through BC.  Chrystal had never seen BC outside of Vancouver and our West Coast Trail hiking trip, so I resolved to show her as much of the rest of this incredible slice of paradise as I could.  We did a whirlwind tour of the southern interior, wine country, up the Sunshine Coast, across the island, a week (SUR-fing) in Tofino, then up through the central-BC backroads to Jasper. Tenting the whole way, enjoying some incredible local produce, grilling fresh fish over a campfire, drinking amazing wine every night… awesome.  A trip every Canadian needs to do at least once in their life.

I got all fired up about the proposed copyright legislation some twisted, ignorant, bought-and-paid-for, miserable excuse for a public servant tried to force down our throats and wallets.  Not that I have an opinion about it or anything…

In May I moved this humble little blog from Blogger to my own WordPress site.  Also started Twittering, because I really don’t have enough ways to waste time online.

Dreamgirl (who I think should start her own blog) had a huge year as well: running her first marathon in Edmonton at the end of the summer, on one of the hottest days of the year!  Also, to the joy of us both, she took a part time job at Mountain Equipment Co-Op.  Just for the extra money, of course.  Nothing to do with the staff discount, amazing trips, cool people, or any of that stuff.  Really.

A big personal achievement in the work world was finally building and launching our new website and blog.  I’m pretty dang proud of this, and I hope you will swing by every once in a while and let me know how I’m doing!

Well, after months of screwing around with templates and code, learning it all from scratch, and even a last-second catastrophe (warning: NSFW, even if totally understandable, Twitter update) where I wiped out all my work (and my backup!), I’ve finally finished my company web site: www.financialbenefitsgroup.com

I’ll be maintaining a blog there on all things related to group benefits, personal and business insurance, and investments for Canadians.  I invite you all to check it out, and I’d appreciate any feedback you could offer!