Mountains Beyond Mountains
A few weeks ago I finished reading Mountains Beyond Moutains by Tracy Kidder. I got this book immediately after I read Philip Greenspun’s review.
After many months of silence on this blog, I thought this would be a good way to get back to writing and continuing with the new year’s resolution I decided on.
“Mountains Beyond Mountains” is a fascinating story about an even more fascinating man, Dr Paul Farmer, who has dedicated his life to help those in need. A great deal of the book covers the work that Dr Farmer and his colleagues have done in Haiti (a country I got to know a little bit throughout my life) -which was the part that really drew me the this book. It covers the work they’ve done in Peru and Russia as well. The story is told by Kidder who accompanied him over multiple years through many truly inhospitable places, and tells us stories of how this dedicated man and his companions have transformed third-world healthcare and how their dedication has saved countless lives. Farmer and his colleagues founded Partner’s in Health, whose mission is “[...] to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care”. Kidder covers with quite some detail how restless Farmer and his colleagues have been in fulfilling that mission, how dedicated (beyond measures at times) and, in my opinion, how successful. Of course, as Farmer says in the book (I don’t have the book here with me so I am quoting from memory) “if I save one life, just one, then I have done my job”, so success is not only measured by the global impact that their hard work has had on the treatment of Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) but also by the individual lives that have been saved along the way. As a side note, if you haven’t seen the work by the world renown photographer James Nachtwey on raising awareness about XDT-TB, you should (the images are terribly moving).
What I found fascinating about this book is that this is a real story on how we should “never underestimate the ability of a small group of committed individuals to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.” (quote by Margaret Mead). Our daily lives are cluttered by an enormous amount of “junk” and sometimes little gems like this one give us back hope, we are not powerless. Through dedication, activism and selflessness, we can and will change the world.
I do agree with PhilG’s review, where he says:
[ ... ] If this is what it takes to change the world, then don’t hold your breath waiting for change, because there probably won’t be another guy like Farmer in our lifetime.
We shouldn’t hold our breath, we actually have to do something about it! Farmer is not unique, there are other “heroes” out there, I know a few. It’s true, there are probably counted with the fingers in one hand when we are talking about having a global reach like what Partner’s in Health has achieved in terms of healthcare in impoverished corners of the world. We don’t all have it in us to be Paul Farmer’s, I certainly am not as gifted or focused as he is. What his story is all about though, for me, is that we cannot afford to give up just because it’s too hard. It also reminded me that our first world problems are minute in comparison to the problems that are plaguing 75% of the world’s population! We have plenty of options to help, let’s just use them!
What can you do? You can donate to Partner’s in Health, or support someone through a micro-loan on Kiva, or support my team on the Oxfam Trailwalker Sydney this year. These are a tiny tiny fraction of all the options out there, there are plenty more!
Adventures into a brave new world
It has been way too long since I last posted here. I think I’ve been using Twitter too much as it feels so easy to just put my stream of consciousness out there without having to fear the empty blank “textarea” (or what writers experience with the blank page, however in our digital times this has long been replaced by a blank word document).
Anyway, as with the vast majority of the western world, I have decided that as part of my “new year’s resolutions” I wanted to tweet less and blog more. Why? Mostly because when I write a post here, I actually spend a vast amount of time thinking about it, preparing for it and, most of the time, it reflects my state of mind more accurately and not just a spontaneous outburst like what can happen through my tweets. And the last few months have been quite intense in my life and I need an outlet to express myself. It’s a way to communicate more detailed ideas, experiences, emotions. All bundled in these words, on these pages.
So, what’s this brave new world I am talking about? Climbing, as in rock climbing! Yes, I know … I am not 18 anymore and why taking on such a strenuous sport at this stage of my life? I owe it to Harry who took me to a climbing wall near Zürich once back in August or September, I can’t remember the exact day. I remember trying to climb the first walls and feeling transported into a state of deep focus and concentration without requiring much preparation and a great sense of camaraderie (well, the person belaying you has your life, literally, in their hands). I remember coming back to my apartment and staying awake until 4AM, unable to sleep, remembering all the moments and also “high” from the adrenaline (I also suffer -or suffered, not sure yet- from vertigo). A few days later, I started to realise how profound this experienced had been and how much it had affected me. And when I say “affected”, I really mean it, a deep transformation. Not just physical (which there was and I will cover that in future posts) but mostly mental.
Mental transformation due to the ability to get in that deep focus almost instantly and repeatedly. Like when I was developing software 24×7 and every now and then I would get into “the zone” and would code for, say, 4 or 5h non-stop and would not have any idea of how much time had passed, how I got to the results I did however those were the best classes, methods, designs and overall architectures. However these moments were seldom the norm. I couldn’t get in “the zone” on demand and I wasn’t able to create the conditions for it artificially. Coming out of “the zone” was also great because I wouldn’t feel stressed, actually all the stress would have evaporated.
As I write this I am thinking over and over again what is that fascinates me so much about climbing. I figured that stress relief is an important factor however that’s not the only one, there are more. The physical challenge is definitely up there, for a computer nerd like myself who has lived a mostly sedentary life, suddenly being able to climb and pull his own weight without the aid of machines or weird contraptions (bouldering) is a major accomplishment. And finally, something that I am very keen on learning about is climbing outdoors. Yes, I have to admit I’ve only been doing indoor climbing so far (give me a break, I’ve only been doing this since September last year) 
!!! There are so many climbing spots around the world, beautiful, photogenic and wild places that are just waiting to be climbed! So much more interesting than the climbing walls at the gym. Of course, don’t take me wrong, I love to train in a climbing wall, the safety and comfort of just a short stroll to it, any day of the week is unbeatable however “the real thing” is impossible to match (at least it’s still a fantasy for me).
I want to share my experiences of going through yet another life transformation, partly because I think it’s now part of who I am and also because there isn’t that much of it out there about climbing nerds and I thought that it could be interesting to document this journey to keep me motivated and focused and, hopefully, to motivate others. Stay tuned.
Two “must-read” books
I started this post a while back and then it sat there, unloved and gathering dust so I started over again. This is not exactly a follow-up from the previous series and it is at the same time.
I started reading two very very interesting books: Slow is Beautiful: New Visions of Community, Leisure and Joie de Vivre and Life Inc. recently. Danielle (my soulmate) gave me “Slow is Beautiful” and I had reserved a copy “Life Inc” before it was released because I’ve always liked Douglas Rushkoff’s writing (ever since John, a friend from Amsterdam, introduced me to his blog back in 2001 or so).
When I first picked “Slow is Beautiful and started reading it, I noticed that we had started going in the direction that Cecile Andrews talks about, towards reclaiming our own life from the hectic environments of our busy cities and its demands. For a while though, I have been still living with a very “city” mind in the country and the good thing is that you are surrounded by “country time” and it reminds you on a daily basis that you need to take it easy or at least, a life can be lived without the constant stress created by the super fast living demands and we need to reorient our individual-centric view of the world to a more community oriented one.
I didn’t realised this until very recently, in particular by talking to our neighbours and realising how much of a community sense there is in our valley. Everyone knows and helps each other. For example, the other day, the guy that delivers the gas bottles got bogged on our property … without even resorting to calling them, our neighbour and a friend that was at his place appeared with their 4WD to help. They had heard the sounds of the van trying to get out of the mud.
I am not even halfway through “Life Inc” and it has already given me a new perspective on the global financial crisis. Somehow I found so many parallels between these two books and our move to the country, it’s a bit scary Once I had the time to finish them and digest them a bit more, I will write a bit more. They relate very closely to where we are at in our life (Danielle, Zeek and I) and seem to be recommending a path forward that’s aligned with our way of thinking and our values. Highly recommended!
So, how does it all start? (part 2)
As I was mentioning in a my previous post, when Ezequiel was born, many things changed and that was the start of it. At that time, I took a month off work (a mix between parental leave and the festive period) which allowed me to be a full-time dad. My parents visited from Argentina to meet Ezequiel and to give us a hand when I went back to work and then, I realised that raising a child wasn’t as simple as I had first thought. Sorry if I digress but this relates to the reasons for our tree-change. We’ve discussed this with our friends who are now parents, it’s very hard to understand how life-changing having a kid is for those that don’t have children. I was like that, I couldn’t understand, deeply, why my nephew screamed (he was a little boy, I’ve since learned that they do that, all the time 
) or why kids would throw tantrums. You might say that I am naïve, because I was a kid once and I did all those things. That’s possibly true but I had a very romantic idea of what being a dad meant and never realised that it would have such a profound impact on myself. First, it’s incredibly rewarding and incredibly hard at exactly the same time. With the same ease, it goes from the most intense joy to despair.
Anyway, I realised that I was focussing too much of my emotional energy at work and wasn’t left with much to deal with the challenges of being a dad and a partner. I used to come home at the time when Ezequiel got grumpy after a day of activity and wasn’t able to cope gracefully and enjoy every moment because I was too stressed or too tired. Danielle was telling me “there’s going to be work for the rest of your life, Ezequiel won’t be this little for much longer, you should enjoy this time with him before he gets to his teenage years and starts telling us ‘I hate you guys, you don’t understand me … ‘ ”.
Danielle was right, I needed to focus my emotional energy on being a father and a partner. That’s when the words from my dad came back to me. Love and Family. They are easily overlooked, in particular in our busy lives focussed on the very diverse, active and overwhelming word on the web. However this was not yet the moment when we realised that we needed to move to the country … what we realised is that we needed to find our own place.
We had been living with Danielle’s folks for a while, saving money to get our deposit for our home loan (yes, the Great Australian Dream) and with a baby, it became more difficult to stay there. Not that we were not welcome, on the contrary, her parents have been extremely generous and without them, we wouldn’t be able to be here, however the rhythms and demands of a young baby can be very different to that of an established family, who’s kids are all adults now. This was really the trigger that made us think about the need to get our own place and so the quest to find a place started.
[to be continued...]
So, how does it all start? (part 1)
As I described in the last paragraph of a previous post, I have been wanting to write more about the adventures, ups and downs, we have gone through in our tree-change.
BTW this is just our story, it’s not meant to be a “guide for a tree change”. I hope, though, that by telling our story (the good and the bad sides) you will understand what it means and how it can transform your life. It’s not that hard, it just takes a bit of courage, facing a few fears and perseverance.
So let me start with a bit of background. Danielle and I have lived all our lives in cities. Danielle lived in Sydney (AU), in Brighton (UK), Amsterdam (NL) and I lived in Paris (FR), Buenos Aires (AR), Amsterdam (NL) and Sydney (AU). I’ve also lived for shorter periods of time in many other places around the world but that’s probably the subject of another post. As you can see, we’ve both lived mostly in first world countries, in large and comfortable cities, with all the ammenities you can expect in a capital city like Sydney or Paris, with large pools of entertainment, distractions, 24h cafés and bookshops, etc. We are used to be in crowds, living the life as shown for the civilised men in “The Gods Must Be Crazy” and we both work and play on the web. It’s really easy to get seduced by the big city lights and it’s infinite distractions, restaurants and cinemas. When we lived on Francis St, in Bondi Beach, we used to have an outrageous amount of takeaway food, drink wine and spend a lot of time travelling from one side to another. Life was easy and our concerns were more about ourselves rather than our impact on the environment (this is hard to write as I worked for 4 years for Greenpeace trying to change these exact patterns of behaviour that I was exhibiting).
In December 2007 Ezequiel was born and so our life changed pretty drastically. Having this little beautiful boy changed me so deeply, it’s hard to explain. A few years ago my father, now getting close to 70 years of age (this is just to say that he has lived a long life and experienced it), told me that the two most important things in life are love and family (with family being a lose definition, because I consider some of my close friends family). Nothing should get in the way of that. And I only truly realised that after Zeek joined us.
[To be continued...]