Altitudes

There is this transmission tower that sits on the top of a hill nearby my home that has fascinated me for years. I was born at a place surrounded by hills in every but one direction, which sounds like nothing worth mentioning, but these hills add extra beauty to any place, and they are not a common occurrence. Not to say we need hills and mountains to make places beautiful, but having them around definitely adds to the scenic outlook. Anyway, as i kid, i was always enthralled by the same tower for many reasons, and the child in me kept getting fascinated over the years.

From what i can remember, the reason for my fascination was imagining the sheer effort it took to get that tower to that place, which at that time was extremely difficult to reach(not so much these days, but it's still hardly a place that gets visitors). I remember wondering how the workers who erected it there might have had to make the most arduous walks through the thick forests, and no access to motor roads meant it took hours to reach there. Somebody explained the purpose of that electricity tower to me and i understood why it was necessary to have one over such a remote hill, but i still remained in awe of the task. I dreamt of reaching that place someday, standing by the tower and looking back thinking of that awestruck kid, somewhere in the lower plains. 

My fascination with hills, and mountains have continued later in life as well. While traveling, i used to always watch the hills and mountains across the rivers, and wondered what was life like in those parts. Lights on those hills would amaze me even more. It was a very pleasant experience just imagining myself there. Obviously, the occupants of those hills lived a tougher life than mine, and didn't have the luxury of quick access to the roads and other necessities as much as they would have liked, but my imagination was not confined to analysing the hardships. It was only about the sincere joy of having views from atop a tall hill, looking down and through nature and its beauties. It was extremely satisfying. 

It took me years before i actually began relating it to how i viewed life in general. You know, the perspectives, the angles, the emotions that were triggered when i thought of those hills. Maybe the literal  conquest of those hills had a deeper meaning in my life. Everybody longs for achievements, ascends and heights. Perhaps, deep within that physical act of scaling heights, i was searching for metaphorical triumphs, divinity of some sort (there's no way to make this sound any less dramatic, but its pure facts). Fast forward a number of years, and i have developed a penchant for visiting distant mountainous areas as a  trekker (sometimes a short hiker on some hills). I buy time and go visit the foothills of eight-thousanders, traverse through glacial lakes and glaciers, high altitude passes, and live through the rugged mountain life as much as i possibly can. Maybe growing up in a country full of mountains and hills conditioned me to love them to this extent, but i have got many acquaintances who'd rather prefer spending their holidays at beaches or some resort(absolutely fine by me and just a matter of choice really, I’m merely stating that it exists), so maybe there is more to it than merely being born here. 

All my life i have been sceptical about the power of meditation. I believed people overglamourised its impacts and simply projected their coping mechanism as a form of acquiring divinity(or however they phrase it). Well, guess what! I have had a radical shift from that thinking. I always thought of myself as someone who preferred solitude not because it provided me with peace and solace, but simply because i was too afraid to let myself out in the open. This is how i interpreted and presented my vulnerability. Nobody would call me a shy person, but nobody would know either that i would hardly open up when it really mattered. People have different coping mechanisms, and this ambiguous way of expressing was mine. Who's to deny! Let's not get carried away, though. The context was that i have now recognised that solitude manifests itself from literal distancing, better than it does from being reserved and not opening up. 

During the long, lonely walks, i let billions of thoughts sprout inside my head. And honestly, I don't exactly get "life changing answers" with the questions that run through my head because "nature heals" or something, but it definitely helps me think differently and profoundly. It definitely has some healing effects. I feel like a rejuvenated person whenever i come back from those treks. Some of you would say the effect is ephemeral, which isn't completely wrong to be honest, but what remains inside you is something that is hard to erase. The effect might not be there, but may be the impacts are permanent. I don't know. I now understand to a greater degree what "Meditation" was intended to be. I can feel it. I have felt it. It exists. To the occasionally forlorn pessimist(i am not quite a pessimist, but i don't know if indifferent really sums it up), it is a game changer. It has definitely changed me as a person. And dare i say it has changed me for the good. It is like an OS upgrade. OS upgrades cannot technically make things worse, can they? I don't know. I'm assuming they can't. But you get my point, don't you? Lets just say i have become a better person, with a clearer view towards life and its ordeals (has anyone ever made insightful opinions about life sound not corny? Damn, it's tough).

Getting (sometimes dragging) yourself to a high altitude hill top is a mission. And metaphorically, life is a stack of such missions. The higher I get, the higher my new destination becomes. People can't be content with life until they have conquered their upper limit. Even if you are a person with little or no ambition in life, it is an instinctive trait all of us possess. I believe there is no escaping that. Think about it this way. If you live for another day, the number of days you have lived grows. I am pointing to that stacking(forgive me for the woeful lack of eloquence in this particular instance or this entire essay if you think so). 

I have realised that despite all my experiences in life, with my profound indifference towards thinking of life as a mission, and a journey of achieving some significant milestone that can be approved and admired by the society, i still get motivated by this desire to reach higher. Is it just the altitudes I want to scale, is it just my desire to reach higher than what I have already reached, or is it indicative of something else? I reached the base camp of Mount Everest at 5300 odd metres. Going by my own logic, will i think of conquering that giant of a mountain? Am i taking this too far? Have i reached my optimum elevation(both emotionally in life and physically)? Well, i am planning to scale a real mountain at some point in my life(if things permit), so who knows!

P.S. 

The tower i mentioned is now accessible because there's a Ropeway that can take us there. I reached that hill but unfortunately couldn't reach the tower due to some constraints. Maybe i will try another day but it would probably be anticlimactic now, I don't know!

Also, there is an incredible guitar piece called Altitudes by one of the greatest guitarists of all time, Jason Becker if you wish to check it out.