Day 21: Not much happened today...but that's good!
South Pole: Solo but Not Alone
Howard Fairbank
Tue 13 Dec 2011 01:16
Elevation: 1892 metres, up only 56 from yesterday.
Firstly, I have today received your blog comments from Dominique... Gee, it's just fantastic reading all you support, views, questions, etc.... I'm overwhelmed, and you have no idea how motivating they all are for me. THANK YOU, but also what I see is that we have a great joint adventure on the go...a special team, it's wonderful! Glad you guys are enjoying it, I'm really loving having you along, it's raising the whole experience to an unprecedented level! I'll try and answer your questions in the postings, as appropriate.
Well it 'would have' been a new record today, but I ended up stopping 1/2 hour early, as foot was starting to pain big time, and I thought best to stop, before damage. Anyway, a great 30.1 km done for the day.
Today was a REAL 'no event' day The weather was amazing, no wind all day, blue sky, and relatively warm, but the terrain was monotonously boring, unlike yesterday. I guess in all this vastness, I can expect a few days like this. They are very mentally challenging though....! Better than fog, blizzard, etc, so I am DEFINITELY not complaining!
The main event was that I had to have a pooh along the ski..! Very unusual, maybe I'm eating too much! Anyway it sounds liike a pretty non-event, but it isn't: First the build up to the decision, as I don't really want to have to stop, but it gets clearrer and clearing that I won't last out until camp at end of day. So once the decision is made, a suitable sastrggi must be found....one that has 'access' and a 'cavity' that can be covered in afterwards by collapsing the sastruggi mound, as my shovel is not readily accessible... Can't leave such an unsightly 'foreign object' in pristine Antarctica it just doesn't seem rright!
Found it, now the hardwork starts: park the sled, remove and drop my poles, unclip and take off backpack, remove ski's, remove outer mitts, so one sort of has fngers again, store mitts, remove handsfree compass from aound neck...oh, its entangled with the GPS neck chord....hmm, swearing!
Next it's off with windsuit top, so I can access trrouser braces, hmmm, it's quite cold, toime to move fast, hope nobody is watching....! Then drop trousers, facing away from the light wind, butt right over the chosen sasttruggi cavity! Now the easy part..having the pooh! Perfect accuracy, all that remains is to break over the sastruggi so it falls over the now 'spoiled' cavity, and everyting looks natural and born here, again. Then it's putting all the stuff back on, and some 15 minutes later I'm back skiing! (my pants do have a real access velcro fastened flap, but this isn't god for me.) So, I'll try not have too do that again.....planning the body hey!
On a not too disimilar vein: Many of yu will know this, but it is one of the thing about cold weather outdoor activities that drivs me nuts, sometinees I could almost cry I get so 'useless': As it gets colder one has to put more layers on, layers of trousers, layers of tops, and layers of gloves / mitts. Well each layer makes thinngs more complex, and you more 'useless' trying to help yourself, and you also start feeling like clumsy Michelin man! I get so frustrated not being able to do a simple 'bare finger' task, as my mitts get in the way, or I have no fingers to undo something... Sounds simple, but when you have all this gearr on, it's because it's REALLY cold, and that's whn you need things done quickoy so yo aren't standing still, getting cold...and so too much fumbling around and a cold spiral begins! Not fun, specially for my impatience!
It is a BEAUTIFUL 'evening out here 'tonight', totally stilll, wind and sound, the sun is streaming onto my tent so it's warm inside, and solar panel charge rate is at max, I have unlimited suply of the purest water around, this is free living!
Interestingly, I decided to not bring any artificial 'boredom distractors' along..ie iPOD, MP3 etc. I love music, and reading books, but oon all my adventures I have a golden rule that says I'm JUST going to deal with thee environment 'one on one', as naked as possible, so I can listen to 'Nature', experience it, and take it all in... I can listen to my iPOD anywhere, anyday, but I can't listen to Antarctica often. The so called 'boredom' is part of the whole experiencee, that I signed up for, why try annd selectively screenn it out. I feel very stroongly about this, and have huge debates with some who want to listen to books while they ski or bicyclee, or whatever.... Each too their own, but I will not go there, and find that what happens is my senses get more sensitive and deliver an even deeper experience.
So continueing the 'Not Wasting Life' thread from yesterday: (it will take a few days to get through this...that's if you haven't got disillusioned along the way!
In our lives we have what I call our 'signiificant activities', those 3-5 things where we spend most of our time in a year. So look back on your last year and try and come up with those 3-5. These aren't the functional things, like eat, sleep, hygiene etc. Fo most 'normal' life people, they maybe things like, work, nurture a relationship(s), participate in extramural activity, enertainment, etc... You must get the list down to no more than 3-5, captruring where you spend your time.
Now where we spend ignificant time we obviously do it for a reason, either we just love doing it, or we do it for a desired outcome, or both reasons.
So for each of the 3-5 think through why you do the activity?Then...
Ask yourself, firstly: Does your soul 'feel good' everyday (or most days) you do the activity? We all know when our soul feels good, I'm not expanding more on that! But Ie are you happy, passionate, excited regularly by the activity?
If your answer is "YES", you are not wasting your life in that activity, but unless you have a "Yes" answer for the next question you may not be achieving the most worthwhile personal life value out of that activity.
The second question is:
Do you HIGHLY value the potential outcome / product / result of continueing the activity? Will this outcome give you Personal Height? Remember all these activities have some interim, ongoing or end 'result'..including nurturing relationships etc..
If you answer "Yes" aswell, to this question, then you DEFINITELY aren't wasting your life in this area, and are actually on the purpose Holy Grail path. Ie you love what you do, and the OUTCOME of doing it is highly valued, and will give you Personal Height.
'No' answers for both questions for an activity, clearly point to a serious 'Wasting Life' situation. You need to mke big change and soon!
A "No" for queestion 1, but a "Yes" for question 2, puts yyou in a high risk of wasting your life situation... Ie you don't like wwha you do 'each day', but you want the end pointt outcome from the 'day's' activity. This is often unsustainable, and happiness / satisfaction is too linked to the end goal, so if the end goal isn''t achieved, 'you' would have wasted your life in this area....Lets take the activity of 'Work': I meet many who hate their jobs (ie a 'No' for question 1), yet need the monthly, annual, etc, income it provides, or are waiting for stock options to expire etc (a 'yes' for question 2) These people are on a fine line between wasting their lives or not.
This two question test iss equally applicable to a mother raissing kids, as it is to a businessman, or an adventurer like me...I have tested the concept across these vastlyy different people with different 3-5 life actiivities, and the 'wasting life' principle applied across all...
Not sure of this all makes sense.... I'll add a last piece tomorrow, once I've thought about what I have written here on thee big walk tomorrow!
Gee, I never thought I'd get into allbthis while out here, but I guess it's the freedom of thought and meditation time that facilitates it.... One of you insightfully picked up that we don't do enoug thinking / meditating, well this addventure and my way of life in general offers me huge amount! In fact one of my 3-5 life activities is ' Thinking', by my own lifestyle design...now isn't that cool or bloody weird!
Ok, cheers again.
PS: It was a year ago, my 1st ex wife, Trish, died of cancer, and my thoughts are with many of my followers who were close to her. I have to other friends fightinng with cancer, and dealing with their own more extreme solo South Pole challenge...Too them I wish you all the strength and courage to win the battle.