Skiing & Intimate Immensity
The philosophy of space, experiencing awe & some mountain pics
The Saturday Brunch: a figurative flat white or fizzy to start your weekend
As we move toward the end of ski season in the Northern Hemisphere, I reflect on the joy and peace I get from skiing.
Some might say I’m obsessed with it, but I know people with far greater ski obsessions than my own. Is it a passion? Yes. One perhaps even more coveted since it is dependent on weather and time off and actually taking the trip to do it.
I get that skiing is a privilege that not everyone has access to, either due to geography or finances or physical abilities. In Switzerland, the mountains, at least, are accessible to all. Not only are costs relatively lower despite the country’s high cost of living but also the accessibility is remarkable. Hiking, snowshoeing, and sledging all take place from mountaintops. The cable car network allows many areas to be accessed also by the very young or very old, or people with mobility issues. Here, I often see baby buggies and crutches on mountain peaks. Restaurants in remote areas encircled by many peaks can be reached by nearly anyone, even if the aim is only to enjoy a coffee.
I started skiing very young at the age of four with my father in New England and, this year, have had the joy of helping my four year old son learn. The journey has taken me to many places…as well as to deep places in my mind.
Bachelard & intimate immensity
The vastness of a mountaintop might seem the oppositve of an intimate experience. Intimate if one experiences it alone, sure, but also intimate in the way that the immensity collapses into the mind of the one experiencing its beauty.
French philosopher of space Gaston Bachelard starts his chapter “Intimate Immensity” in The Poetics of Space as such (p. 183):
One might say that immensity is a; philosophical category of daydream. Daydream undoubtedly feeds on all kinds of sights, but through a sort of natural inclination, it contemplates grandeur. And this' contemplation produces an attitude that is so special, an inner state that is so unlike any other, that the daydream transports the dreamer outside the immediate world to a world that bears the mark of infinity.
Bachelard is speaking mainly of interiors in this book - largely symbolically of the domestic space, but here the space becomes one’s own inner being. In this chapter, he speaks largely of daydreams as “pure imagination” of the “motionless man” (p. 184), that is, a consciousness based purely on an interior state rather than one’s surroundings.
Much of the chapter discusses types of conscious meditation. Bachelard considers the way we may experience this ‘immensity’ of depth in understanding our phenomenological world in the way poets do.
Vast mountain peaks make us feel small physically, but this also means we can experience a contained near-infinite sense of contemplation, appreciation of beauty, and awe. Of course, one need not be a skier to experience mountains in this way. But skiing brings us to physical challenges and rhythmic bodily harmonies that perhaps perpetuate these feelings. The sometimes long and lonely ride on a chairlift of gondola brings us into an even stranger perspective toward the earth and a motionless consideration of what greatness lies before us.
Perhaps it is the solitude — I do a lot of skiing alone. Perhaps it is the Buddhist feeling of smallness that I love. The near erasure of self in the universe allows us to feel free.
This famous Caspar David Friedrich painting is often used as a symbol of the Romantic ways of the depths of one soul represented by poetic means:
[Some argue this type of philosophy (phenomenological) is at odds with post-structuralists like Jacques Derrida. On the contrary, I would argue that Derrida’s work - especially on différance - is ultimately about this same appreciation of conscious imagination and one’s (small) place in the (natural) world. But I shall save that for some later discussion on différance and its place in the ‘real world’ or everyday life.]
Awe
I was thinking about what this kind of awe has to do with the joy I get from skiing. There is something special, for example, about a new ski experience. While it’s great to go to the pistes you love (and easier to ski them) and return to enjoyable lodges or mountaintop restaurants, something in the newness of an unknown landscape to view or ride through.
I then encountered this podcast episode from Dr. Ranagn Chatterjee about the eight types of awe that Dr Dacher Keltner has researched and identified —
It’s a great conversation with many of Dr. Chatterjee’s own related observations about things like Oasis (& a lack of phone distraction at concerts), the death of his father, and Zoom yoga classes. You can also read about the research in his book or discussed in this NYT article. His work at Greater Good Sciene Center at UC Berkeley on the topic is summarized here.
One of the ways to experience awe is through nature, perhaps an obvious observation and easily related to the effect of a ski mountain on an individual.
But another is through collective movement - when one skis with friends, one can have a solitary experience as well as a communal one, shared through the language of skiing on the chairlift. Even skiing down a piste with strangers has this effect: people are moving to their own rhythms (hopefully) in harmony with each other. We nod to others to hit a steep line first or yelp out from the lift when we witness a pretty jump. Or, we stop to make sure someone is ok when they take a fall.
“I am amazed at things outside of myself.”
- Dr. Keltner
Listening to or creating music might also be part of your ski experience. If your body moves to a beat as you ski or you have headphones in your helmet…or, even better, there’s a concert playing on the side of the piste…you can experience awe through music while skiing.
Witnessing life and death is yet another of the eight types of awe. While one might not fear death explicitly on a ski day, the height, the cold, the potential isolation…these might all compel us to reflect on our mortality.
Ski photos
Maybe you can’t go skiing or even go up in a gondola. I’ll leave you with a few images to use your imagination! Even better to watch some of the extreme ski videos from peaks I don’t dare drop down to from a helicopter but love to imagine from the safety of a comfy chair by a fireplace.
4 Vallées (Verbier, Veysonnaz, Nendaz, Thyon, Bruson, La Tzoumaz; Switzerland)
These photos are from a recent trip with my good friend Cara whom I met in Hong Kong. She’s now back in her native Geneva home after a lot of adventures including a year of working as a ski and snowboard instructor. You can read a fantastic FT Opinion piece she wrote about female leadership and climate change last year.
The terrain was widely varied and although it would have been better to explore with more off-piste snow, we got a good overview of the four main areas over the weekend…and are ready to go back for more.
Jungfrau (Grindelwald, Wengen, Mürren; Switzerland)
Skiing at Wengen is a great joy due to the possibility to flirt all day long with the North Face of the Eiger. Here she is:
But on the same ski ticket, one can ride the mountain train around to Mürren (another quaint Swiss ski village) where you can find some fun pistes. If you go all the way to the top, you will find yourself at Piz Gloria, famous from James Bond. There are cardboard cutouts from the film along with a cafe, restaurant, shop, cinema, ‘Spy World,’ and viewing platform of the endless peaks. Either ski down the expert trail on the Shilthorn or head back on the cable car after a walk over the observation deck.
Crans Montana (Switzerland)
Schladming (Austria)
Obertauern (Austria)
This ski resort is also famous for its setting in the film Help! with The Beatles:
Other things:
“Skiing for life: A miracle sport for generative happiness,” by Bryan Reynolds in Freeskier
Ski lingo [A ‘cool’ skier told my son he had done a ‘switch’ when he accidentally skied backwards. He now wants to switch all the time!! Or does he just like saying it? There’s something about cool words that help you enjoy the sport even more…]
“I’m an Avid Skier” by Jill Magi explores work stress. She talks about it here.
Mikaela Shiffrin’s youtube.com channel — I feel full of awe witnessing her ski successes. And she has a lot of depth, from discussing her period in relation to sport performance to her relationship with Aleksander Kilde.
I recently shared the origin of the name for this publication while skiing at The Matterhorn:
Thanks for reading! If you enjoy the snowy mountains, I hope you’ve been able to have some time on the slopes this year! If you want to see more of my ski pics, including some at St. Moritz this week, connect with me on Instagram. We’re expecting a big dump tomorrow!
I have never been skiing or even to a ski resort, and frankly the idea of it has always terrified me! But I can appreciate from the words and images you use here how life-affirming it must be. The vastness of the mountains and the solitude are appealing.
The only thing I can compare it to is when I'm walking deep into nature. Coming across natural landmarks and feeling that tiny insignificance always inspires me. I am lucky to live close to the Peak District in the UK; not quite The Matterhorn, but beautiful nonetheless!