On Moving to Chamonix

When is a dream not a dream? When it's a reality. The dream will remain, but you don't dream of bad times to come, or imagine the details too clearly. And 'Living The Dream' - impossible - as why would anyone dream of things they can have. Don't dream it, do it. Live life in a way that makes you jealous of yourself; but in a good way. Imagine who you can be. Imagine the best that you can be. And then become that person. Simple. As simple as life itself. But dreams and reality mix in turbulent ways. In any case, who wants to be normal? Not me at any rate.

So, now the reality is slowly setting in. And I'm basically unemployed in a town where the natives are slightly hostile, where I don't speak the language and where I can't even open a bank account as I'm considered too transient as an unemployed seasonnaire. And what of the other dreams - to become an accomplished investor and mountaineer. Was I just trying to leave the smog, or was I moving to cleaner air for more than just the vistas of snow-covered Alpine peaks?

Well, removing some distance between me and the mountains should help with the latter goal. And yet I feel unfit and unacclimatised to the mountain environment at the moment. Need motivated partners to get me out of the rut that city life makes us slide into. I need the mountains to brush away the cobwebs and detritus of cramped, city living. Where reality is as false and unreal as the masks that walk the streets all day long. Where has my reality gone, have I lost the will to really live - the will to explore what is possible when determination combines with skill and judgement against artificial adversity?

City life is still in me. I make the flat I'm in homely - but mostly so that others will see my recent success, for self-aggrandisement, or in search of praise. The great climbers slept in tents and on mountains, I'm in a heated flat. They scraped a living from any old job to get back on the heights, and I have spent the day indoors despite my proximity to the hills. The cobwebs surround me and cloud my thoughts and judgement. Where is the clarity of vision that once shone forth? It's up high, and soon I will seek it out.

At least the noise is subsiding. All that terrible, distracting noise of city life. To invest wisely you must know your own mind. You must think your own thoughts and make your own decisions. The framework can be externally sought, but must be internalised. You can learn from other's mistakes, and their own lessons. But you must think for yourself, or your decisions are not your own to check against for future fallibility. And knowing that you are fallible - that's the ultimate conscience raiser that creates a great investor. To face that fallibility is against human nature, but face it you must. Indeed stare at it with wide eyes and treat it as a lost child.  Lost, but once viewed appropriately... the truth is found.

And up in the heights, knowing yourself is once again key. To truly understand the humanity that lies within, you must seek what it takes to rise up. There is no gain without the possibility of loss. And no triumph except in the face of adversity. So creating adversity in order to experience the growth of a new reality, once that adversity has been overcome, would seem to be seeking some form of truth, some form of internal knowledge that will remain locked away otherwise.

So, here I am. Entering my new reality. One of my own creation. A dream of sorts. A way to seek truths that lie beneath. The truth behind the curtain of market noise. And the truth behind the cobwebs of the concrete and steel left behind.