🤯Unknown Unknowns #128 - There's No Need to Explain Your Joy
The specter of loss always lingers. In the last couple of months, my family had a loss and my friend’s mother passed.
I spent the last two weeks in Utah skiing. The long chair rides up the mountain lend themselves to reflection. I’ve gone skiing so many times that the trips and the days blur into each other. Why do I keep going out to the mountains? Skiing is a simple activity, you ride a chair up and you ski down. At the end of the day, you’re right back where you started. I’ve never wondered why I skied before, but having a loss makes you question even the most basic joys in life.
I’ve skied almost every year since I was ten and while I know I enjoyed every day, I struggle to remember the specific moments of joy. My watch can now track every statistic. I can point to how many runs I skied or how many vertical feet I covered. I can post the day on Instagram. But the actual memories are blurry.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?
If you can’t remember a moment, is it worth having?
One day, during the trip, I saw two skiers on Instagram hurtling down a sheer face.
Among all the admiring comments, one stood out. “Why would anyone want to do this? What a waste of time.” Turns out this commentator was a doctor and believed the effort would be better put into saving lives.
“What a dick,” was my initial reaction. These skiers were pushing the limits of human capability! But they were also just going up and going down. Best case, they would wind up exactly where they started. It’s hard to explain why we do things and it’s harder to understand why other people do things.
It’s easy to be cynical. It’s even easier to judge other people’s decisions based on your own life story. But we lose the moments of wonder that come through our lives.
On the last day of the trip, we wandered into a store, killing time before our flight. A sweatshirt caught my eye:
Text: Psychologists have studied the rationale for skiing - skiers speculate about it. Ordinary mortals shake their heads in dismay over it. There is an ambivalence to this sport. There are no scores or points to skiing, but the beauty of movement gives a self-assurance that is better than winning a game. It is a sport that brings escape from the cares and tension of daily life. Skiing brings an awareness of the grandeur of nature; an exhausting exercise for most people, yet no other sport gives such a feeling of satisfaction and healthy vigor. Why do we ski? Words can't explain it. You have to meet the people who ski - the individualists, the non-conformists. You have to see the beauty of snow-covered mountains and valleys. You have to participate in this movement of truth. Why do we ski? You have to become a skier to know.
Wearables can track the runs we do, the vertical feet we descend, and the speed we go, but the joy of skiing can’t be captured in numbers. Trying to maximize metrics lowers the value. I’ve gone on trips trying to reach goals of vertical feet and it becomes a joy-sucking slog. Who cares if the number goes higher? I’ve never even looked at the numbers afterward!
A fun experience can neither be explained by the experiencer nor denied by the hearer. Experiences matter, even if we can't catalog or explain them. The only person who can determine the meaning of something is you, in that moment.
I can’t explain why I enjoy skiing. I can only describe the sensations. And you can’t deny that I enjoyed them.
The cold air rushing past me. The pressure and weight shifts of effortless carves. Feeling my body adjust and move and react without any thought, just flowing down a trail. Navigating through a mogul field that looks impenetrable. Trying out new skills and the thrill of the results. Pushing through exhaustion and getting through to the other side. Floating through fresh powder. Gliding around, under, and through trees.
Maybe these are moments that can’t be savored because the memory can’t capture the full experience. But the memory of the feelings linger and I want to experience it over and over and over again.
Arnold Zack said, “Nobody on his deathbed ever said, ‘I wish I had spent more time on my business.’” I hope at that point, I won’t regret not doing something because I can’t explain why I like it.
Thank you to for the feedback.
📝 Writing of the Week:
I’ve been writing unpolished, around 100-word mini-essays. Just reflections on ideas from podcasts or things on the news. Here are the latest:
1️⃣ The Best Way to Learn is to Teach
2️⃣ Moloch and Pyrrhic Victories
3️⃣ Experts Don't Exist in a Dynamic World
4️⃣ What is Good for the Many is Not Necessarily Good for the Few
🔍 Discoveries:
1️⃣ Is this standup? A one-man show? I just know that when I see a special by Mike Birbiglia I will come out differently on the other side. My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend was the first time I had an inkling that surrender wasn’t hokey woo-woo and forgiveness wasn’t fooling yourself.
2️⃣ This is probably my favorite parable. I’ll let you psychoanalyze me from that. After I told it to one friend, he said, “That is the most Chris story ever.”
3️⃣
4️⃣
writes:I am not entirely unambitious, though. I am just unambitious in relation to the career, financial, and power expectations of some of the circles I’ve run in in the past... What I am very ambitious about, however, is being able to fully support my child’s growth and development within an oppressive society that is hostile to youth.
💬 Quote of the Week:
The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience. A process that cannot be understood by stopping it. We must move with the flow of the process. We must join it. We must flow with it. - Jamis, Dune
🏴☠️ Something Fun:
👨🔧 If you need help in your writing or creative journey, perhaps I can help you:
⇒ Concept Crafting - Have an idea for an essay but not sure how to get it on paper?
⇒ Whiteboard Ideation - Through a one-hour call, we’ll unlock your ideas
⇒ Course Catalyst - Get the most out of taking an online course
And one way to help me:
⇒ I’m always looking for feedback, and in Cate’s above essay, she suggests this tool for giving feedback anonymously.
You can find more of my writing at chr.iswong.com.
Questions, suggestions, complaints? Email me at [email protected].
Feedback welcome.
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with a friend or two. And feel free to send anything you find interesting to me!
Leaving you in peace,
Chris
I take your point that joy doesn't require explanation or justification--your essay compellingly demonstrates it and I heartily agree!
I can't help speculating, though, about why skiing is simultaneously so thrilling and so deeply consoling. It's super fun, of course. My guess it's because skiing (surfing, slacklining, etc.) take us into a state of flow, where the physical sensations are exciting and so immersive that our mind goes to another level of total concentration, and is at last relieved from the continual mental "doom scrolling" inside our minds, the lamentably normal state of background cognitive processing through endless random ideas, distractions and anxieties and baseless hopes . . .
I made a big career pivot into teaching after what I considered to be a successful career in consulting & startups (for my own objectives/goals). In my interview I expressed how it was pure joy for me to teach again (I had done it before, and I was already doing it as a casual, and I was interviewing for a permanent position). I was almost caught off guard when asked what it was about teaching that gave me joy. I gave a pseudo-scientific answer that was probably semi-convincing (got the job) but really it's as hard to explain as it is why someone would like chocolate ice cream over strawberry ice cream.