Things that strike me

On Thursday, while browsing in Easons, I discovered that WhiteLines, the snowboarding magazine, had a free DVD included with this issue. As past experience has shown free DVDs on the covers of extreme sports magazines to be well worth 7E or so, I bought it, despite not being all that interested in snowboarding.

Part of the price of buying these things is you feel sort of honour bound to maybe leaf through them at various stages before you dump the magazine in the recycling box in 9 months’ time wondering why you bought it in the first place and so, over breakfast this morning, I was looking at WhiteLines (having spent much of some day last week trying to work out where was best to go snowboarding having watched the DVD), to see was there anything more interesting than the photos in it. Surprisingly enough, there was. There was an article about some dude who, at the age of 32, threw up the job and went to work the season in Chamonix. In fact, the idea behind doing it was probably more interesting than the article itself. Put simply, the guy preferred snowboarding to having money. More or less. Was sick of the London ratrace. I used to live there. I can’t say I blame him for that bit. But dropping career, life, everything to go snowboarding; that takes guts when you’re into a career path, are used to having stuff and are 32 years old.

I wonder how many of us would do it, or something similar, if we had the choice/chance/realistic way of making it happen.

I can’t say I’d drop everything to go to work the snowboarding season in Chamonix – if I am looking for escape, I really do prefer the sea to the mountains and cold – but the thing is, I do wonder about doing something equivalent some times. Usually when the weather in Dublin is grim, or after I’ve made the mistake of listening to any current affairs program for longer than 32 seconds. Seeing Christmas decorations in some shop on Sunday has not helped.

One of my friends has a tagline on his profile on some site of “living the dream since….” which is great for him. He did identify the dream and move to it. I just wonder how many people out there think they’d like to live the dream but are afraid it’d fail, can’t afford it, don’t even know what it is…

This is something that I squirrel away to think about every once in a while. In a way, opportunities I have now, I really wish I had 10 years ago when I was younger. Or, I wish I was still 26 years old. That might be more accurate.

I should probably avoid the travel section of the bookstores where all those English writers threw life in to pursue the dream of renovating a 19th centure wreck in the south of France for 4pence.

one other thing: am much impressed by the WhiteLines website. It will bear further exploration later when I have time.