How to Focus and When to Chaos [Part I]

There are people among us that don’t go with the flow

Ask them what they are doing tomorrow, they know

Would they perhaps like to change their mind? Maybe consider adding another activity?

“No”

Inhuman! Have they no feelings? No fear they might miss some show?

Do you admire people who stick to plans or find them annoyingly rigid? What if you have decided to keep to a climbing training schedule this winter but it’s snowing outside and your friends are inviting you to go skiing? In a place like Chamonix, full of inspiring and highly active people, it’s easy to start feeling torn between activities.

I come from a background of neatness, precision and preparation. New Year’s resolutions? I have been working on them since last year. To compensate, in my free time, I often seek natural places that surprise, cultural events that stimulate and friends that are spontaneous. So recently I have been wondering about that balance between constructive order and liberating chaos.

Most of our activities require both focus and creativity. Going into the mountains requires optimism of the will but to get good at climbing and skiing and stay injury-free requires attentiveness. Conversely, art is a beautiful productive mess until you have to finish that brilliant idea you got excited about. With privilege came the abundance of opportunities. One of the superpowers of our times is knowing how to focus and when to chaos. While focus comes to me naturally, and I will mention some of the methods that work for me, I am equally fascinated by deliberate chaos and believe that there are times when it’s preferable.

This balance between order and chaos shapes our choices of why, what, how, when, where and with whom!

WHY AT ALL?

Chaos to experience what is out there. Focus on the thing that gives you peace.

Anything is better done and better experienced if we put our heart into it. To do so we need to believe in something. Purpose gives calm. Even if your why is simply that you love doing something so much that you cannot stop. Chaos comes useful to help us find the things we like in the first place. After you try a few you can decide which one you want to focus on. Even if the things you like doing change, it’s grounding to choose which one is the most important to you at a given time.

I am lucky that I found climbing this way. During my 16 years of it the why kept transforming as I tried different things. Often I could not fully explain why I kept at it but it felt important to me. Should I have done something else with my time? Well, last spring I got deeply depressed. I was not sure where I would be in a month let alone a year, time stopped existing as my days had no agenda. I still dragged myself to the wall and just climbed. Until the climbing and friends I made through it reminded me once again who I am. Memories created a safe space in the now and opened doors to the future. I invested a lot of time into one thing but then this thing gave me back time itself.

Or if you prefer Cookie Monster’s philosophy into it, he says:

“Today we are here to talk about the word – important!

When something is important it means WHOLE LOT to you” Obviously to him those are cookies.

Figure out what types of cookies and cakes you like. If you eat a different one each day or two types a day or the same one every time the only truth is that you can only eat that many cookies per day before you get sick of them. And even if you choose a strange one today well that serves to tell you not to choose it tomorrow. No need to fear missing out on someone’s lemon drizzle or try to convince them that their chocolate cake is a laughable idea. All cookies are a sweet important experience. Just ski your line, climb a boulder instead of a mountain, spend a season in Patagonia, write a book, learn an instrument but focus on eating your cake and how lucky you are to have it in the first place.

SO WHAT EXACTLY?

Goals. Living in the moment versus creating something that lasts.

Life is an endless chaos of possibilities. To navigate it, first, it is good to decide where you would like to end up. One dream or another things are usually smoother when we specify goals.  Yet choosing a good goal is often a project in itself. While a big allure of skiing and climbing is that they bring you into the present, the feelings they create are momentary. Even with a defined goal like climbing a certain mountain the way is often unpredictable and the effect brief.  Living for the experience can be a goal in itself but an awareness and acceptance of this brings ease.

Then things last longer if a goal is well connected with a why. Not to climb a grade but overcome limitations, not to conquer a summit but to intuit life, not just a line to ski but a memory to keep. Likewise opening a new route so that others can climb it, teaching someone how to climb, capturing the experience on film or in a meaningful story with a message are all almost permanent in the scale of our lifetime.

After good days in the mountains I often reflect back on their purpose. Until sometimes I feel like I am trying to squeeze essence out of those rocks. To capture the meaning of life is one sure way to drive humans crazy. At the sharp edge of understanding, I realise that the point changes from day to day but there are absolute truths. The ice is cold, the sun is warm and a smile is contagious. Nature chooses the simplest way to form so I keep going to it to let it shape me.

END OF PART I (Because I went ice climbing…). If you liked this tune in for Part II

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