Living on the Extremes

“Living on the extremes is where you want to be,” Yvon answered. “You just got to be careful about spending too much time in the middle.” - Life Lived Wild (page 256).

This quotes comes as Yvon Chouinard and Rick Ridgeway goes from flying a private plane with a friend to hitchhiking somewhere in South America.

When I read this a few weeks ago I immediately wrote it down as something connected deeply with me.

For a while I have felt that avoiding “the middle” is a good idea. But I have not been been able to fully articulate what I was feeling. This quote — along with the rest of Life Lived Wild — helped me focus my idea a bit.

This fall I was hiking in the mountains of Norway. I had been out for a few days and only seen three people and a dog in that time. Mostly I had the beautiful nature and well maintained mountain huts for myself.

It was absolutely amazing. Waking up in a valley surrounded by mountains on all sides. Nothing interrupting the nature around me.

On the last day I walked out and on my way I had a naked dip in a mountain lake. A few hours later I clearly reached the tourist part of the trail. The difference was immediate and stark. After days alone it was almost too much. It felt crowded.

These people were out in nature but they would never experience it the way I just had. The first few rays of sunlight hitting my face after a cold night under a tarp. The night sky as I had to leave my comfortable sleeping bag to take a leak. The quiet morning coffee outside a mountain hut next to a river — feeling the beating my body had taken the previous days and contemplating the challenges ahead.

Instead, they would have an okay walk. And then they’d drive back and have an okay afternoon. Followed by an okay evening.

And that’s how it is when we follow the crowd. When we go with the middle. The norm. The average.

Everything will be fine. Not great, not terrible. Fine.

It will be more expensive than it should be. More crowded. More mediocre.

You don’t have to hike mountains to experience more of the extremes. That’s just one example from recent memory. I have plenty more where that came form. But going with everyone else isn’t how you have outsized experiences.

I want to embrace more variance. More of the extremes. That means the highs as well as the lows. More discomfort and more relief when the challenge is over.