More

Originally Posted Thursday, December 5, 2013

It's early and I'm drunk and I will be in bed before ten, but. . . take a look at this (link).  They are not quite like me, but I have the Patagonia wear.  It is not who I am. . . but it is what I think.  Sustainability.  Longevity.  People before Profits.  I've done much of this, and drunk tonight (with sciatica eating at my back) I long to do much, much more.  I love it "out there."  There is nothing like it, no experience that can match it.  I've done it but never enough.  This picture of Yvonne Chouinard shows a man born in 1938 who is still going places, still doing things.  He is probably an asshole (I've met him briefly and was pretty much convinced of that), but a good asshole, I would say.  He had made a lot of money but he never needed to.  He used to live in a garbage bin in Jackson Hole so he could climb, but Glenn Exum would not hire him as a guide because he had not those all-American values that Exum so admired.  Later, he founded the Chouinard (later Black Diamond) Company and Patagonia.  He and his friend Rick Ridgeway invented the term "Fun Hogs." 

There was nothing to it, really.  You just went outside and did things--climbing, trekking, surfing, skiing, snow shoeing, sailing.  You travelled and lived as cheaply and enviro-friendly as possible.  And then you kicked back and thought about it. 

I used to curse those Patagonia catalogs.  I would look at them after work and get a yearning to go climb something again.  I'd get a group of friends and we'd start planning and training and then go.  Once in a white out at eighteen thousand feet with lightening popping all around, I swore I would never  have a Patagonia catalog in my house again.  It made it all look so fun and easy. 

Here is a photo that really inspired me.  It was the cover of one of the Patagonia long ago.  I wanted to be crazy, too. 

Now that I cannot stand without pain, of course I want more.  I guess I said that yesterday, though.  It is what Mr. Creosote said in "The Meaning of Life" just before he exploded.