I have a memory of a teacher I had there recounting a story to us about an individual that, despite incredible hardships, remained faithful and thankful to God for whatever blessings he still had remaining.  He lost his sight, but was still grateful he could hear.  He lost an arm, but was still grateful to God for the use of his other arm.

To my young ears, this sounded utterly ridiculous.  I challenged the teacher and said something like, “What if he lost BOTH of his arms – what then?”

And she replied, “Then he would be grateful for still having his legs.”

“Oh, come on!” I thought.  “OK, what if he then lost his legs??!!” I retorted.

“Then he would be grateful for still having the use of his upper body.”

“What if he had his head chopped off???”

I don’t remember her exact reply to that one, but it went on like this for several rounds, with her insisting that the plagued fellow always remained thankful to God for what he had rather than dwell on his dramatic misfortunes.

I dismissed the whole premise as nonsense – who would have that kind of response in real life?

This memory popped into my head this morning, as I was working out on the Santa Monica Stairs and contemplating the many things I have to be grateful for this Thanksgiving.

And it occurred to me that thanksgiving really ought to be incorporated into every day – even those days we don’t have off from work for a national holiday.  Because the truth is that being blessed and feeling blessed are two different things.  I am of the belief that we human beings are not even capable of recognizing, or even comprehending, all of the good fortune in our lives.  And there is a practicality to this.  If we sincerely tried to grasp, acknowledge, and appreciate all of the blessings in our lives, we would end up doing nothing else.

Think about the human body alone, particularly if yours is at least semi-functional and you are relatively healthy.  There are so many varieties of disease and physical pain in the human experience, it would be impossible to be grateful at any given moment in time for all of the ones we are currently not experiencing!  The human body is amazing.  Have you thanked, for instance, your skeletal, digestive, muscular, lymphatic, endocrine, nervous, cardiovascular, reproductive, and/or urinary systems today for the work they are, and have been, doing?  I had not thanked any of them until just now, and then only very cursorily!

There is simply too much to be thankful for – it is astounding to contemplate.  What about the roads you walked, cycled, or drove on today, and the efforts of the people who paved them?  What about your ability to enjoy tasting the food you will eat today – or even having food to eat today at all when so many others in the world do not?  What about the people in your life?  Can you even remember all of them and all of the ways in which they have made your life richer and more satisfying?  (Why not acknowledge one of them now for something – who, after all, does not like a sincere acknowledgment?).  What about Mother Nature, and the bounty she provides not only in terms of food and resources needed for survival, but for her sheer magnificence and beauty?  What about the physical comforts you are enjoying, due to your good fortune of living in the time and place you are, reaping the benefits of technology and other scientific accomplishments including medicines and vaccines?  The ability to refrigerate or freeze your food so you can store it for longer periods of time?  The plumbing in whatever facilities you live in, work in, or otherwise have access to?  The endless wealth of great things to read, and public libraries in which to access them (not to mention the Internet)?  What about the teachers who have taught you skills you use every day, or who have awakened your own curiosity and passion or inspired you in some way?  What about the SUN???!!!  What about painful experiences, through which you have gained wisdom that has helped you to grow, become more compassionate, or even helped you become a happier person in the long run?  What about ART, in any of its myriad forms?  Is your life better with music in it?  What about laughter, and humor?  Is your life easier to endure and more pleasurable for these uniquely human capacities?

And then there is gratitude itself.  The ability to recognize the blessings in our life (to whatever degree we can), appreciate them, and feel genuinely fortunate for them is a huge gift.  Because feeling blessed makes us happier, and more likely to want to spread some of that joy outward into the world.  And feeling blessed has little to do with our objective life circumstances.  It’s a state of mind.  My Sunday school teacher made a good point.  It just took a long time for me to get it.

I’ll sing what I’ve said

We come and we go

That’s a thing that I keep in the back of my head.

- Paul Simon, “I Know What I Know”

***

There is something about birthdays that reminds us of our finitude – especially birthdays with a zero on the end.

When I turned thirty, life was good: I had recently returned from an amazing adventure – backpacking some 540 miles of the Appalachian Trail through Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and parts of Virginia – and was back living in LA, a place I loved calling home.  I was healthy, had good friends and lots of interests, and was a much more contented person overall than I was upon turning twenty.

However, there were two key things “missing” from my life that I still desired greatly: 1) a loving relationship with a genuine, compatible partner, and 2) meaningful, enjoyable work that I felt good about (and that also paid the bills).  I came upon the realization around that time that there were three possible ways the rest of my life could play out in regard to these:

1) I might realize one of my Big Wishes, but not the other.

2) I might be fortunate enough to realize both.

3) I might not realize either one, despite my best efforts.

It was pure, inarguable, mathematical truth: it had to be one of these three.

In light of this epiphany, I made a conscious decision: I would continue to do whatever I could to make these Big Dreams come true, but I was not going to let my happiness depend upon the realization of either one of them.  I resolved to do the best I could to enjoy my life and live it to the fullest with or without these things.  It seemed like about the wisest decision I could make.

Today I am forty.  And after making what I would consider noble, sustained efforts toward realizing both Big Dreams, I have managed to realize one of them in the decade that has elapsed (her name is Samantha, and we’re getting married in November on the seventh anniversary of the day we met!).  The other Dream has, thus far at least, remained elusive. But I haven’t given up on it.  And I did right by myself all the while by having an amazing time in my thirties despite my ongoing struggle to find/create work I truly love.

I’m not sure how much bona fide wisdom I have accumulated on my journey thus far, but here are ten things that forty years of life has taught me:

1. Never Say Never

This is a lesson I have learned a multitude of times, so I tend to be extremely careful about ruling anything out! The point is to keep an open mind, because you cannot possibly foresee all of the circumstances in which you might do something you swore you would never do (for better, worse, or even a mixture of both).

Some things I never imagined I would ever have the slightest interest in doing (let alone believed I could do) turned out to be extremely positive, life-affirming experiences: running a marathon, and completing an iron-distance triathlon, for example.

Working a boring, 8 to 5 office job is something I once swore vehemently against ever doing. So of course I have managed to do exactly that many times over already. It’s become a vicious cycle I have not (yet) been able to break.  While I generally perceive this to be an unfortunate thing, in at least one instance a boring 8 to 5 job was, by my own admission, nothing short of a life saver.

Internalizing the lesson of never saying never keeps you humble.  It raises your awareness of your connection to all of humanity, and can thereby increase your compassion (“There but for the grace of God go I.”).  It can also help to expand your concept of yourself and what is possible. Think you would never, could never, possibly do what so-and-so did? Think again!

2. Learn to Enjoy Your Own Company

Do the things you love doing, even if you have to do them alone. I’m not saying relegate yourself to being a lifelong loner. By all means, find friends with mutual interests to share life’s experiences with. Find love! But if it’s a choice between not doing something you really want to do or doing it by yourself, go and do it alone. Take a trip by yourself for a day, a weekend, or a month. You experience things differently when you are on your own and in complete control over what to do, and how or when to do it. And in doing so you can build the muscles of self-confidence and self-sufficiency.

Arguably the most attractive and desirable quality you can have is being completely comfortable with yourself. It can take time to develop this (or relearn it, as it seems to come naturally to most young kids), but it couldn’t be more worth it. When I was single, I didn’t see the point of doing things I had no interest in (i.e., going to bars) solely in the hope that I might meet someone. By doing things I loved, even by myself, I was almost guaranteed to have a good time whether I met someone in the process or not.

3. Health Isn’t Everything, But Without It You’ve Got (Next to) Nothing

Take time to take care of yourself: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually (whatever that means to you). Make it a priority. If you don’t, it will catch up to you in one way or another – guaranteed.

Like a lot of people, I had to learn this lesson the hard way. For a significant part of my teens and twenties I was completely and utterly obsessed with becoming a professional singer/songwriter. My entire sense of self-worth came from my identification with this vision I had of myself. If I didn’t become “successful” at this (both artistically and commercially), then I was, by my own estimation, a total and complete failure. I gave a lot of power to things outside of my control in determining my own self-worth. Needless to say, this was a recipe for disaster.

In one sense I was proud of the fact that I had burned the candle at every conceivable end to establish a career for myself as a musician, and that I had done so until I reached the point where I could not do it any more (translation: suffered a nervous breakdown and deep depression). In another sense, I wasn’t so sure this was something to be proud of. For me it was an “a-ha” realization that my overall well-being had to come first. It was a painful lesson. And one I, personally, probably couldn’t have learned any other way.  It’s also one I’ll not soon forget.

4. Progress, Not Perfection

This is self-explanatory, and a big lesson I continue to work on internalizing. It turns out being mercilessly hard on yourself isn’t actually helpful. Who knew??? Learning to acknowledge yourself for efforts made and steps taken, and to forgive yourself for the ways in which you may have fallen short, is essential to making any progress at all.

By the way, if you have truly mastered this concept in your day-to-day life, please consider being my guru.

5. Compare, Despair

This is related to number four above. Celebrate your own strengths and develop your own talents, in your own time. Accept your own weaknesses and work around them if you can’t transcend them. Do the best you can in your particular circumstances at any given time. Being the best “you” you can be is the best you can ever hope to do with your life. Considering yourself inferior or superior to others is not only unhelpful, it’s most likely inaccurate. We are all unique.  Spare yourself the shoulds.  Or, as I heard it said on the Appalachian Trail: “Hike your own hike.”

6. The Secret to Discipline Is In Forming Consciously Chosen Habits

Step One:  Decide that something is important to you/worth doing.  Choose the habit you wish to adopt (something about it has to be compelling).

Step Two:  Come up with a realistic schedule – designate specific times (appointments with yourself) for doing it.  Figure this out ahead of time.  Schedule it in.  It won’t happen by itself or based on your whim of feeling like doing it.

Step Three:  Force yourself to do it.  It may be very difficult at first.  Push through the difficulty.  You will almost certainly be glad you did, each and every time.  Start small and build up accomplishments in seeing it through.  Try not to miss a session, but if you do just start right back up again ASAP.

Step Four:  ”Increase the dosage” gradually.  Keep doing the activity, and observe the amazing process of conditioning at work.  It will become less difficult to motivate yourself to do it once you have successes under your belt and are building some momentum.

Step Five:  You may actually find you are enjoying it once you get started.  If so, you will begin learning that starting is the hardest part.

Step Six:  This is key: refer back to your experiences of being glad you did it, even if it was initially difficult to get started.  It is much easier to push through that initial discomfort when you can draw upon the experiential knowledge that you will thank yourself for doing it.

Step Seven: Eventually, once something becomes a habit, you will actually start to feel discomfort if you don’t do it (think of a habit like brushing or flossing your teeth).

The best concrete example I can give of how this process works is my own experience training for my first marathon.  I previously thought that running a marathon would be an exercise in self-torture, but the idea of doing one crept into my imagination and started intriguing me.  It was a daunting challenge, for sure, but there was something about it that fascinated me.  Could I even do it?  The longest run I had ever done at that point in my life was six miles.  One day I was in a bookstore (remember those?) and, just out of curiosity, picked up a book called The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer.  I sat down and read the Introduction, and it basically said in so many words: if you do everything we tell you to do in this book, you will finish a marathon.  For whatever reason, I believed them.  I bought the book right then and there, and in that moment made the decision that I would do it (Step One).  I registered for the LA Marathon, and began my training, following the book’s program to a tee.  Here’s what I noticed:

Three times a week, following the book’s plan (Step Two), I would get up early to fit a training run in before work (the fourth weekly run, the “long” run, was done on the weekend).  It was wintertime or close to it, it was dark and cold outside, and I had to get up really early to do this.  Initially, it took a strong will (discipline).  I had to fight through my discomfort and force myself to do it (Step Three).  But each time I did, I was glad.  After several weeks of this, my body started adapting to the schedule and appreciating the benefits of the exercise.  Before I knew it, I was waking up before the alarm went off, and my body felt totally primed and ready to run.  I was conditioning both my mind and body to do this (Step Four).  The further along I progressed in the training program, the more was at stake and the more invested I became in it.  What initially took discipline and may have been difficult was starting to become habituated and less difficult.  I felt good after running! (Step Five).  Everyone around me at work got sick that winter with a nasty flu.  I somehow steered clear of it, and (though running isn’t guaranteed to do this) I am convinced that the reason I did not catch it was that all the running I was doing had strengthened my immune system.

I finished the marathon, and it felt like one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.  I’ve also habituated aerobic exercise (running or otherwise) to the point where it is now very much integrated into my lifestyle.  It doesn’t take much to get myself to do it, and it is a habit that has been strengthened through positive reinforcement (appreciating the benefits of feeling good and being physically fit).

7. Every Decision You Make Is A Trade-Off

The way it works is that whatever you say “Yes” to in any given moment, you are automatically saying “No” to everything else. All anyone can do in life is make a bunch of decisions and have a bunch of experiences. You can lament all that you’re missing out on (it’s a lot, no matter what!), or embrace whatever it is you’ve chosen to do in any given moment.

As the comedian Steven Wright once put it: “You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?”

8. “You Can’t Be Embarrassed Without Your Consent”

I first encountered this quote in a book somewhere – it was attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt.  I have thought about Eleanor’s words I don’t know how many thousands of time since.  We can actually choose how we react to or feel about things.  Revolutionary.  Substitute the feeling adjective of your choice for “embarrassed” and it still works.  It’s not like I don’t get my feelings hurt from time to time or stew unnecessarily in negative emotions any more, but this idea has changed my life.

9. Life is a Balancing Act of Caring and Not Caring, and Knowing When to Do Which

Care too deeply about every little thing and you’ll drive yourself absolutely, certifiably nuts.  Be apathetic about everything and everyone and you will live a hollow, empty life.  In order to thrive you have to both care and not care, let go of what doesn’t matter and invest yourself deeply in what does.  But distinguishing between these things and acting accordingly?  Riding that balance?  This is where living well becomes an art form.

10. Life is an Unfolding Kaliedoscope – All Things in it Are Temporary and Ephemeral

After years of contemplating and struggling with what life and death are all about, this is about the best I’ve come up with: Life is an ever-unfolding kaleidoscope. Things continuously emerge and then disappear. They change, evolve, dissolve back into the ether, reform, take shape, and reappear in all kinds of ever changing combinations. Each of us is an infinitesimally small part of this wondrous, mysterious, remarkable, inconceivable, unknowable, unpredictable, exquisite, kaleidoscopic design called Life. Maybe there is some grand purpose to the whole thing. Maybe not. It might be nothing more than a dream in the end. But isn’t it beautiful? And colorful???  :)

***

I look forward to what awaits me in my forties and (hopefully) beyond!  I hope to keep having more great adventures and enriching experiences.  More inspired moments and actions.  I look forward to discovering new things about myself, awakening dormant interests I may not have even known were ever there, and surprising myself in positive ways.  I look forward to more experiences of deeply connecting with people, and of profound friendship.  I look forward to the next stage of my relationship with Samantha as we become husband and wife.  I look forward to getting better at living for as long as I’m here… until I disappear – and possibly reappear, reformed(?) – in this ever-unfolding kaleidoscope.

Portrait of a grateful hominid: taken from the top of Huayna Picchu, April 6th, 2012

On my trip to Peru earlier this year, nearly everyone in our group got sick at one point or another, from one thing or another.  Each day more newly ill were confirmed.  For some it was altitude sickness (those of us who took Diamox ahead of time did seem to avoid this particular malady).  For others, it was a gastrointestinal disturbance (i.e., diarrhea), often accompanied by other symptoms (chills, fever, etc.).  The symptoms were consistent enough that it seemed like something (perhaps some kind of virus or bacteria) was making its way through our group.

I was fine for the first five days of the trip, the fifth of which was our hike on the Inca Trail into Machu Picchu.  But early in the morning on Day Six, I awoke in my hotel room in Aguas Calientes and had to repeatedly run to the bathroom, the latest to be stricken with diarrhea.  And then, after a while of that, came perhaps my least favorite physical sensation of all time.  Nausea.

Finally, I began puking my guts up.  Or so I thought.  To my surprise, my involuntary “got-to-get-you-OUT-OF-my-life” stomach thrusts amounted to little more than dry heaves accompanied by an otherworldly soundtrack from my throat.  (Enjoying the story so far???).  Eating breakfast was out of the question.  The dry heaves continued after I left the hotel room.  And the most anticipated day of our trip (a full day exploring Machu Picchu) was now an up-in-the-air proposition for me.  How would I survive even the (very bumpy and winding) bus ride up from Aguas Calientes, let alone the rest of the day, with my stomach as it was? (I knew just how bumpy and winding it was, as we had taken the same bus ride down from the astounding ruins the day before at the end of our day of hiking).

Fortunately, it just so happened that there were no less than five doctors (four of them GI specialists) and one pharmacologist in our group, and even more fortunately they came to Peru “fully loaded”.  Just as the group was getting ready to board the bus for Machu Picchu, one of the doctors came to my rescue.  She gave me a drug I had never heard of before called Zofran.  It came in the form of a tablet that dissolves in your mouth.  She told me it was an anti-nausea medication, often given to chemo patients, and that it worked quickly.  Desperate for help, I took it.  It proved to be one of (if not THE) most effective and miraculous drugs I’ve ever taken.  Relief came pretty much instantly, and no side effects were experienced whatsoever.  I went from being sick to my stomach one minute to fine the next.  It was magical.  On the bus ride, I knew I’d have been done for had I not taken it.  I was grateful beyond words!

I thoroughly enjoyed our morning tour of Machu Picchu with the group.  Our guide, Abelardo, did a marvelous job of enhancing our appreciation for the extraordinary skills of the Incas who constructed this city and the mysteries that remain about how and why it was built in the first place.  Truly.  Awesome.

Samantha and I had purchased permits ahead of time to hike Huayna Picchu, the mountain that dwarfs the city of Machu Picchu (see photos in the slideshow below), so we left the tour a little early to gain access to the trail before the time deadline for entrance.  Between my queasy stomach and Samantha’s aching knee, neither one of us was sure that morning that we would be in good enough condition to take advantage of the perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do this amazing hike, but due to the Zofran and Ibuprofen provided to each of us respectively by our caregiving co-travelers, we both fared just fine!

We had lunch afterwards (my first food intake of the day), and I was very, very careful about what I ate and fortunately managed to hold everything down without a problem.  We still had the rest of the day to do with as we wished, so Samantha and I continued our explorations on foot, and fit in the “Inca Bridge” hike (also featured in the slideshow below) before taking our bus back down to Aguas Calientes.  I had a second Zofran tablet on hand in case the first one wore off before the day was through, but I did not even need to take it (what’s more, I was fine for the remainder of the trip, leading me to believe I might have had something different from what so many others in our group came down with).

It was an amazing, amazing day, filled with so many things I love: hiking, outdoor adventure, breathtaking scenery, a fascinating glimpse into one of the world’s most remarkable places, and great people to share it all with, especially my best friend and love, Samantha.  It was a privilege to live it.  And as far as I’m concerned I owe the whole day’s priceless experiences to a kind and generous doctor who came to my rescue in a big way (I’m omitting her name here in case it is for some reason not perceived as acceptable at large for a doctor to dispense medication of that nature outside the context of a formal office visit).  Without question, I’d have been holed up in my hotel room and would have missed out on this amazing day were it not for that “magic pill” and the doctor who gave it to me.  I am forever indebted to her.

Of course, while a day such as this seems obviously to be a gift from others, nearly any (if not every) day of our lives can be perceived in this fashion, as well.  Whether you choose to assign Mother Nature, God, or Randomness as the recipient of your gratitude, your existence is still a gift from something beyond yourself.  You were conceived, cared for, raised, and educated by others.  And on any given day you are the beneficiary of the labor of others when you enjoy any of the many things other people have created, built, fought for, or otherwise made available for you to eat, drink, or experience.  The list of these things is endless, but worth contemplating.  Brainstorming them would require an indefinite number of blog posts by an indefinite number of bloggers (go ahead and run with this project if you are so inclined!).

So in that spirit of gratitude, I thank all of the people and conditions, known and unknown, that lined up to give me this amazing experience at Machu Picchu, as well as all of the other amazing days and experiences of my life.  I’m also working at learning how to be grateful for those days and experiences that have been downright miserable, if only because full appreciation for the former might not be possible without the latter.

Below is a slideshow of photos taken at Machu Picchu.  If you enjoy them, you have my fellow traveler/doctor friend to thank!

Machu Picchu: April 5th & 6th, 2012

At my first opportunity I brought it to our guide’s attention and asked him about it.  Why were they singing a Beatles song during Easter Sunday service in Lima?  I couldn’t help but ask him.  He explained to me that while, yes, she was singing the melody to “Hey Jude”, the (Spanish) lyrics she was singing were about Jesus.  Now, I pretty much hear the music of the Beatles (as do you) here, there, and everywhere I go – but at a church in Lima on one of the holiest days of the year?  Would this not have been considered sacrilege a mere couple of decades ago?  I thought Paul McCartney would have been tickled if he had been there to hear it.  Myself, I couldn’t help but recall with amusement John Lennon’s infamous remark about the Beatles being more popular than Christ.

This anecdote, of course, is just one example of Paul McCartney’s immeasurable impact on the entire planet that we inhabit.  Is there a person alive today who has brought more joy to his/her fellow human beings than Sir Paul has?  

Rather than rattle off Paul McCartney’s already-much-written-about unparalleled achievements in music during the span of his five-decades-long-and-counting career, I figured I would just write what amounts to more of a thank you letter to one of my (and, let’s face it, millions of others’) greatest musical heroes of all time:

Dear Paul, er- Mr. McCartney – I mean, Sir Paul…(sigh), okay, you know who you are!

I am unabashedly and unapologetically a hero worshiper by nature (“and what’s wrong with that?  I’d like to know…”).   I recognize the fact that the objects of my intense admiration are simply human, and flawed like all the rest of us.  But my appreciation for the gifts and inspiration provided to me by certain people whom I’ve never met is so profound that I don’t mind calling them heroes.  In fact, I actually think it’s pretty cool to still be able to have heroes at my age (nearly 40), and to still be reduced to tears when one of them takes the stage and I happen to be in the same building.

To say that your music, with the Beatles and otherwise, has been the “soundtrack of my life” would be to repeat an almost unpardonably overused cliché, but it would be absolutely true nonetheless.  I haven’t tallied all of my hours of music listening over the course of my life, but I would be willing to bet that I have listened to no one else’s music as often as I have listened to yours.  There’s a reason for this.  Your music does something for my soul.  You have not only provided me with countless hours of entertainment and unending fuel for my own musical aspirations and pursuits, but you have been, above all: a spirit-lifter, a gifted therapist, a trusted friend.  To this day, hearing your voice and your melodies produces in me feelings of joy and/or indescribable comfort.  How is it possible to not get sick of songs I have already heard thousands of times before? (This, perhaps more than anything else, is the litmus test for great music).  Okay, I see that I am getting gushy here.  I’ll probably get gushier.

Thank you for not only continuing to make music through thick and thin, and not only for modeling the benefits of doing what you love and keeping a youthful spirit in the face of a world that leaves so many people weary, wary, jaded, and worse…thank you not only for generously sharing your innate musical talent regardless of what the critics have had to say about you, and for using your platform on the world stage to be an advocate for animals and the environment…but thank you for your unflappable cheerfulness and resilience.  Thank you for being such a steadfast optimist and romantic.  We really need that here.  When you sing to us and urge us to “take a sad song and make it better”, insist to us that “it’s getting better all the time” and that “we can work it out”, and assure us that “there will be an answer”…it is nothing less than healing.  You heal us.

So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for how much you have enriched, and continue to enrich, my life and the lives of countless others by unearthing so much incredible music from the ether for all of us to enjoy.  You are a gift to the world.  Happy 70^th Birthday, Paul!!!

With much love, good wishes, and gratitude,
Eric C. Teplitz

You could show up at Machu Picchu not knowing anything about it whatsoever.  Not knowing, for instance, that it was built over 500 years ago, and by a people (the Incas) who had no written language yet were sophisticated enough to understand a great deal of astronomy.

You might simply be amazed by the spectacle of it: the confounding truth of its location, perched high up in the Andes, and the wonder of how it ever got there.

The more you did learn about Machu Picchu, however (such as the fact that those who constructed it did so without even having the technology of the wheel!), you would no doubt only find it that much more perplexing and awe-inspiring.  Theories abound, but a great deal is still not fully understood about its purpose and its history.

Machu Picchu now attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year who wish to behold the truth of its existence for themselves.  This year, Samantha and I were among them.

On April 5^th, our tour group with Andes Adventures boarded a train in Ollantaytambo that traveled alongside the Urubamba River and dropped us off at Chachabamba (Km. 104, at 7,200’), where we would access the Inca Trail.  Those who did not wish to hike in to Machu Picchu continued on the train to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of the mountains from which tourists are shuttled by bus back and forth to the world-famous ruins.  The Inca Trail in its entirety takes four days on average for people to complete on foot, but we were simply covering the last seven miles or so of it (not flat miles, mind you) in one day to reach Machu Picchu via the “Gateway of the Sun”, where our first glimpse of the setting would be from above, as it was for the Incas.

If you do this as we did, your first view of Machu Picchu after hiking all day long may look something like this:

They don’t call it a cloud forest for nothing!

However, the clouds tend to drift in and out, so if you are patient, it will probably soon enough look more like this:

What follows is a slideshow of our hike from Chachabamba to the Gateway of the Sun and the view above.  Click on the photo below to begin:

The Inca Trail – 4/5/12

I will write more about our experiences at Machu Picchu and share some more photos in the next post!

I spent the first eight days of April on a whirlwhind tour of Peru.  It took me until the more-than-ripe age of thirty-eight to travel outside of the U.S. for the first time, but this was my third international trip in the past year and a half!

As with my previous trips to Guatemala and to Italy (which also included a two-day jaunt to Austria), this trip came about through a generous invitation.  Samantha’s close friend Ginny was taking a family trip organized by her brother, Devy, who owns and operates an adventure travel outfit based in Santa Monica called Andes Adventures.  What was initially intended to be a trip just for their family grew into a trip for “family and friends” and we were extended an invitation to join them, which we graciously accepted.

Devy is meticulous in the trips that he organizes, so we had a very fast-paced and highly structured itinerary for our eight-day exploration (known on his company’s website as their Wonders of Peru offering).  The trip included a variety of activities, including expertly guided tours of historical sites in Cusco, the Sacred Valley of the Incas, and Lima; unique opportunities to witness the craftsmanship of local weavers and artisans firsthand; fine dining (and dancing, for those who were game!); and the mesmerizing highlight: a hike to and exploration of the world-famous ruins of the Incan city known as Machu Picchu.

This was my first experience on such an elaborate group tour, and I wondered how I would feel about it versus traveling in a more self-directed way.  The trade-offs are that you have to adhere to a regimented schedule, follow the prescribed itinerary, and there are fewer opportunities to, say, interact with the locals or be spontaneous about where to eat or what to explore.  But there were some key advantages, as well:

1)  Everything is done for you in terms of meal planning, lodging arrangements, and traveling logistics (this felt a little weird to me at times, like something I wouldn’t want to get used to as a lifestyle, but it certainly was nice enough to not have to worry about any of those things for eight days).

2) We benefited from the expertise and experience of people who really knew the places we were visiting and had personal contacts there.  This meant having greater access to certain things (i.e., touring an actual Quechan home) and having experiences it would not have necessarily occurred to me to pursue on my own (I may have missed out on the ruins at Ollantaytambo, for example, a huge highlight of the trip for me).

3) A major advantage was traveling for much of the trip with the guide Devy had selected for us, Abelardo Vignati, who added an incredible amount to our appreciation and understanding of the sites we visited.  I recommend him highly if you are planning on visiting Cusco, the Sacred Valley, and/or Machu Picchu.  I believe he is available for independent hire as well as through Andes Adventures, although I could not find his direct contact information online.

What follows is a slideshow showcasing some of the highlights of our trip.  Our adventure began by flying from L.A. to Lima, and then hopping on a connecting flight to Cusco.  A word to the wise: both L.A. and Lima are at sea level; Cusco is at 11,150′ (and we would be ascending as high as 12,350′ within the first few days).  I had prior experience with hiking at similar altitudes, but not without acclimatizing first.  At the strong urging of a colleague of Samantha’s (a doctor whom she has great respect for), we both decided to consult our docs to obtain prescriptions for Acetazolamide (aka Diamox) to help with the adjustment to the swift and significant change in altitude.  Some strange side effects aside (tingly extremities, slight lightheadedness), this was a decision neither one of us regretted.  Those in our party who took the medication did not suffer from the ill-effects of altitude.  A number of others who did not take the medication did.

Click on the photo below to start the slideshow:

Cusco and the Sacred Valley

Cuzco & The Sacred Valley

The next post will cover the Machu Picchu portion of our trip. Stay tuned!

For one thing, going through every single item you have and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of means that you must, in a very real sense, face and deal with all of your stuff.  For a longtime pack rat like me, this is no easy task. 

But (assuming for a moment that I’m not alone here) why do we hold on to stuff we don’t need in the first place?  Why does our stuff tend to have such a powerful hold on us?  I think it’s because – for many of us, and to varying degrees – our sense of identity is linked to our stuff.  Yes, some of us may derive a sense of self-worth or importance from the material things that we own.  But on a deeper level, our stuff also validates our existence.  We have been around, and we have done things.  How do we know?  We have the proof in our stuff!  If we discard this stuff, how will we be able to keep track of all that we have done, especially when our memory fails us?  And how will the world at large ever know what we have done, or know that we were here at all, once we’re gone?

I find it especially interesting that I not only hold on to things that remind me of happy times or that might (presumably) come in handy some day, but that I tend to keep things even if they drudge up painful memories or are things I know I will never have any actual use for.  If these items are draining to wade through and revisit during those infrequent times when I actually do so, why bother keeping them at all?  Maybe it’s because I want to be able to point to the experiences I have accumulated that have shaped my life: the efforts I have put forth, the challenges I have endured, and my own perceived missteps and failures as well as personal victories and accomplishments.  Maybe there is some insight to be gleaned from all of this documentation regarding who I am and what I am really all about, how I have grown and developed over the years and what parts of me have remained essentially the same.

What’s the harm in holding on to stuff, anyway?  And what are the benefits of paring it down?  What is worth keeping, and for how long?  There is no one-size-fits-all answer.  But, for whatever it’s worth, here are some of my thoughts on all of this “stuff”:

1.  You’ve probably heard aphorisms before along the lines of “The stuff you own owns you” and “Possessions possess.”  There is nothing wrong with stuff in and of itself.  The trick is to have your stuff serve you rather than have it be your master.  Does your stuff prevent you from doing things you want to do?  Are you weighed down by it, or by the obligations to pay for, manage, or maintain it?  For any given thing that you own or keep, are you actually better off with it or without it?

2.  By physically going through all of your stuff item by item, you are inevitably confronted with your own spending habits, and perhaps become a bit wiser for it.  I have concluded that when making a purchase of any kind there are two questions that are worth asking:

• Is this something I will actually use (or read/listen to/derive satisfaction from/get my money’s worth out of)?
• Am I willing to go to the trouble of storing this item indefinitely?  Seeing a purchase as an obligation to house something, as a burden of sorts, might make me more thoughtful about what I choose to buy in the first place.

3.  Stuff that you have and no longer use might be very useful to someone else.  My friend Mikki, for example, once gave me a bike rack that was just sitting in her garage collecting dust when she heard that I could use one.  I went on to get a whole lot of use out of it for years (I’m still grateful to her, and often think of her when I use it!).  If you have items that you never use, consider giving them away to people who might get actual (possibly even abundant) use out of them.  If you don’t personally know any would-be recipients, you can always donate books to a local library, clothing to a homeless shelter, and just about anything to the Salvation Army or Goodwill.  I even discovered a local bike co-op to donate some old bike tubes and accessories to.

4.  Most of your stuff can probably be divided into two basic categories: the utilitarian and the sentimental.  The sentimental is that which may have no value to anyone but yourself, or perhaps people close to you, such as your children (born or unborn), etc.  This is the stuff that can be a lot harder to part with: personal items, photos, souvenirs, letters, and the like (“Yes, Virginia, there really was a time before e-mail…”).  Going through a wide array of these items (including papers and mementos from as far back as elementary school), I have been experiencing the tension between the desires to both hold on to the past and to let go of it.  I think it helps to view decluttering as a process, and one that you can expect will be a time-consuming one.  It is hard to let go of things all at once, but it is more doable in stages.  I have found that I may have been hesitant to throw away much at all after going through an entire box full of papers, but on a second or third pass a short time later it suddenly becomes obvious that I don’t need half of what is in there, and it becomes easier to let go of it.  What I have done in a lot of cases is organized things into categories, even if I haven’t yet pared them down all that much.  Consolidating and organizing such items can give you a different perspective on them, and can make it easier to manage, reduce, or discard them at a later date.  Of course, in the digital age, scanning some things before throwing them away altogether might be the most comfortable and comforting option (take note several years later if you’ve ever even gone back once to look at these digital files!).

5.  No matter how thorough you are in your decluttering, your stuff will continue to amass, and chaos will inevitably reappear (my high school chemistry teacher referred to this as the law of entropy).  Devising a system to manage incoming stuff on a regular basis can help you to deter the buildup of clutter.

6.  Some advantages of decluttering:

• Things you have been meaning to attend to will become more visible instead of buried under piles of paper and forgotten about.  This increases the chances of your actually attending to them.
• You may find things you have been looking for but misplaced.
• Making your living space less cluttered and more aesthetically pleasing can have a calming effect and make it more appealing to spend time in it.
• It can be a very symbolic and potentially liberating act: getting rid of the old to make room for the new.

7.  What will happen to all of our stuff in the end?  Pretty much the same thing that will happen to us.  It will vanish.  It will be no longer.  It will meet its maker!  It will end up buried in the ground somewhere, decompose, biodegrade, or be recycled.  Yes, it may be handed down from generation to generation for a time or be preserved in some fashion for a while, but all material things will ultimately disappear.  Like ourselves, our stuff has a limited lifespan.  And maybe that’s a good thing. 

8.  My hope is that decluttering the immediate physical space of my living environment may have a similar effect on my inner living space, as well.  The way I see it, it can only help. 

Here are some final thoughts on “stuff” from the inimitable George Carlin:

In the Dolomites…

It’s been nearly two and a half months since returning from my first (and hopefully not last!) trip to Italy, but I thought I’d share some photos from an extraordinary hike I was fortunate enough to be able to enjoy in the magnificent-beyond-words Dolomites this past September.  I traveled to northern Italy at the generous invitation of my friend Paolo, whom Samantha and I stayed with at his family home in the resort town of Cortina d’Ampezzo.  There were nine of us staying there in all, but I couldn’t convince any of the others to do the Via Ferrata Ivano Dibona with me.  So, hiring a guide recommended by Paolo, I went alone.  The service I used was Guide Alpine di Cortina d’Ampezzo, and my guide was Andrea Piccoliori, whom I ended up having all to myself as no one else signed up with him that day.  Andrea was fantastic, and I recommend him highly if ever you find yourself in need of a mountain guide in the Dolomites!  All I had to bring with me were sufficient clothes, food, and sturdy shoes with good tread.  The equipment was provided by the guide.

There is no technical climbing involved in this hike, and I did not find it to be nearly as daunting as some of the photos I saw beforehand suggested.  That said, I’m glad I had a guide with me who knew the route as well as Andrea did.  It’s perfectly doable as long as you don’t have a significant fear of heights and are in decent physical shape.  The long, steep downhill stretches on scree were, in my opinion, the hardest part.  There is a total elevation loss of approximately 5,000 feet - which is nothing to sneeze at -but the views and exhilaration factor make it well worth it.  The whole hike from start to finish took about six hours and forty minutes, including a lunch stop and ample time for photo taking (the scenery was so breathtaking that I was unusually snap-happy in an effort to capture it to whatever degree I could).

One of the most striking things about the route is the abundance of World War I artifacts left in place along the way, everything from bullet shells to remnants of wartime housing.  Trying to imagine the horrors that soldiers endured amidst such stunning natural beauty was a paradox that proved a bit much for my brain, so I surrendered to the beauty more often than not.

Here is a slideshow of photos (pared down to 60!) from this exceptional hike.  Enjoy!