My former associate, still working at 3M, was sharing his recent vacation to Kauai. It seems he fell in love with the place after a couple of weeks.
"It's remote, but not super remote. With the internet you're still connected, but there's no hustle and bustle, and the best of two worlds. Oceans and mountains. Lot's of hiking, biking, swimming, and surfing and golfing. Lot's to do. I've got to find a way to at least retire there. Or find a way to make a living when the kids have moved on."
It all sounded wonderful to me until he started going down the domicile path rather than staying with the vacation angle. Waking every day within the same narrow temperature range all year round? What would shock the blood into action? Endless comfort? What would there be to recover from? What would make a cup of hot chocolate, or a hot bath feel so good? What would occupy the caverns of modern day walk-in closets and coat racks? Or shoe and boot racks?
Seasonal sojourns to warmer clime's is not for me, no sir (or ma'am). What would life be like without the feel of 40 degrees after a week of sub-zero temperatures. A veritable heat wave. In Kauai I'm sure they'd be looking for federal natural disaster assistance. The conversion of water to ice and snow, and back again to water would no longer be a natural experience. It's absence would leave way to much time in the day for non-productive activity. And how can you appreciate the beautiful, sunny, 86 degree day as much without that conversion in your recent past. Just another day in your shorts, as opposed to the feeling of freedom and independence from the need for layers.
Sincerely, I need the four seasons. I need to be challenged by the elements, to feel like I'm enduring something in pursuit of comfort down the road. To feel that it matters how I prepare, to consider the consequences of poor planning. That's perhaps the explanation behind the draw to Lake Superior... in the middle of winter... with all the ice... Do you think there's something wrong with me?
"Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in bliss so that nothing but bubbles would dance on the surface of his bliss, as on a sea...and even then every man, out of sheer ingratitude, sheer libel, would play you some loathsome trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive rationality his fatal fantastic element...simply in order to prove to himself that men still are men and not piano keys."
ReplyDeleteFyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground