Bliss

Words are like shells on a beach: they’re countless, some new, but mostly old, chipped, broken, shattered, transforming into ever smaller grains of sand. Children don’t seem to be able to differentiate between a diamond shell and a lump of coal, and most people were the same with words.

The diamond shell is the one in a million; it shines at your naked feet if you have an eye to look, calling you to pick it up, to rescue it. The unbeautiful shells, dull, uniform, 3D printed by nature, make up the din of the beach, the background, the texture, the shape, and mingle with everything else: the waves, the earth, the planet. Both need each other. But for a child, it all goes into the same bucket, probably because to a child, everything is new and beautiful, and when it comes to words, most adults are the same, but because it isn’t.

A few words I think are worth picking up and keeping to study and puzzle over are words like duty, soul, or forgiveness. These words are made beautiful by their rarity, even if they were once common but now have little utility, like coal adjectives such as cassette, britches, or parlour. But at least such rare finds have been saved from being financialised, like resilience, trust, and fortitude.

A word like forgiveness, for example, is one worth hard study and contemplation, like someone studies a religious text, as - like many words - or religious texts - it takes deep and ancient wisdom and condenses it down to something of value to both the believer and the non, be that into a book, a paragraph, or a single word. It took me half a lifetime to understand that the act of forgiveness is not about letting other people off the hook, giving in or up; it’s about letting yourself off, for example, to commute your life sentence for something someone else did, or didn’t do, a vendetta on your future self. You don’t forgive and unburden someone else; you let go and unburden yourself.

One diamond word I think a lot about is bliss, which I guess has been financialised somewhat. It makes you think of someone eating Magnum ice cream, which cheapens it, as it’s one of our most important and profound words put to meaning and purpose. It’s not about eating a €2.95 frozen treat; it’s in a state of complete tranquillity and freedom from all disturbance.

The question I ask myself a lot is, what have been my moments of bliss? When I think hard about it, I can see it would be easy to confuse moments in a climbing life as being blissful when really they were something else. These other feelings are like that adage about hitting your head against a brick wall; it’s not bliss that you feel when you stop; it’s relief. This is the feeling one often feels when they top out (or when they bail and reach the ground); the harder to battle, the greater the pain, the greater the relief, which brings its joy. There is also the warm reward of success, which can feel like bliss, but it’s not; it’s more of the same: the knowledge you’ve saved yourself from future physical, emotional and spiritual pain until you find a new wall to headbutt.

No, bliss is something else; it’s by its very nature hard to capture or replicate and can come at any time, as long as you’re able to put the pieces in place and - not wanting to sound like a hippy - have a heart open to bliss.

When have I found bliss? Moments that come to mind include laying in a meadow of alpine flowers below the Ratikon, diving into a cool swimming pool at Keough’s Hotsprings, California, after coming out of the hot pool, as well as diving (again), into the Corrib, Ireland, of the island of Inchagoil (“Island of the devout foreigner”).

They create a sense of bliss, seem to require total relation, to be totally unafraid, to clear your head of all weight, something that is perhaps possible when your body becomes so relaxed - and unafraid - it kills all anxiety and distraction that normal troubles the modern mind. It’s like when the most burdened person sees a shooting star or a rainbow, for just an instant, they feel only one thing, which is child-like wonder, but bliss is when you feel that you feel nothing. It’s when the clock stops ticking, and you hear nothing on maximum volume.

And so I was thinking about this yesterday, out on the Corrib, on the tiny island of Inishbeag. I was laying on a blanket, on the soft grass, the wind blowing, but not blowing on me, the sun shining down, but through the leaves, so neither too hot nor too cold. My belly was full from lunch, and I had confidence I could get my unreliable outboard engine to get us home. And then I felt it, bliss, but only for a moment, just the edge of it, which was enough, gone, when my son jumped on me, then my daughter.

“I think you think I’m a bouncy castle,” I said, feeling the bliss drift off with the wind, “the second you see me, you can’t help but jump on me”.

As they jumped and giggled, I held onto that feeling of bliss, like you do a fading dream, and had an important thought: that bliss, by its very nature, has to be fleeting, like a rainbow or a shooting star. Yes, it can hang in the mist for a while, move slowly across the heavens, or make time not only stand still but be meaningless, but if such fleeting things or feelings were to stay too long, that would be some kind of terror.

I rolled onto my back and tried to share what I thought was a profound thought with my wife, Vanessa, that really, each blissful moment I could remember, had been measured in only seconds, that you should just take what you’re given, and be happy for that; but the children were too noisy, their laughter too loud, so I just rolled back over, continued to be a bouncy castle, and let myself feel the receding, as the thought, and the bliss, drifted off across the water.