Peregrinations

I just think this is funny more than anything else.

And I am completely guilty.

And unapologetic.

This happened on a trip I took to Nepal with a couple of buddies.

After spending the better part of a week hiking through the Himalayas we finally reached the top of a mountain named Kala Patthar. It is a lesser and comparatively inconsequential peak of 18,500 ft when viewed in context of it’s surroundings so only our man-pride sustained injuries when the locals referred to it as ‘the hill’.

Anyways, we get to the top of this ‘hill’ and both of my friends (I would have been but I did not own a phone) are overjoyed to learn that there is not only cell reception but a 3G network. The tweets start blasting. Calls are made. We are fully integrated into the rest of the world on the top of this mountain on the other side of the world in the middle of nowhere. It is interesting to note that after all that work and hiking that was the first thing we thought of. I actually remember hiking up and talking about how excited we were to tweet the view from the top. One, because it was going to be really breathtaking. And two because it would probably get us some girls. Well, mainly for the girls…

 I think you can discount that in a million different ways. Yes, we are ridiculous. Sure, we should probably get off our mobile devices a bit more often. Using the expression ‘I can’t wait to tweet this…’ is absurd. We will be the first to admit that. And we know that there comes a time when you need to put all the digital drugs down and just breath. They can disable you from really seeing the beauty you are surrounded by. They are incredibly distracting. They are numbing. We absolutely abuse them in numerous ways. And, sure, maybe we should have taken a moment or two to take things in before we fired off picture after picture so that our friends glued to their media feeds in cubicles on the other side of the world would think we were cool.

But at the end of the day we were on the other side of the world on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere interacting with people both that we know and love and ones we possibly have never met. The world is a richer and more vibrant place because of it. And I, for one, think that is pretty freaking cool.

And for the record: this is the view that we were so excited to share…