MOUNTAIN MEN VS PLAIN JANES - SEGMENT 1

"Giant Mountains" - Caspar David Friederich (aptly named, due to the fact that he was German, and the Germans actually know what mountains look like)

Dear Inter-Webs,

I tried to make this post coherent, but I'm afraid that's beyond my skill level, so we went down some rabbit holes. Here we go.

I have spent most of my startling life living in what I would call mountainous or hilly regions. Now if anyone so unfortunate as to be Swiss is reading this, I will offer a translation. The word “mountainous” in this context, roughly translates to “müchenflatlandschäften”, or "slight increment of elevation barely discernible from neighbouring terrain” in Swiss German. 

THE FIRST RABBIT HOLE OF THE POST

I mean, if a dear old Swiss goat herder caught a plane from Zurich to Canberra, and then got taken to Mt. Kosciuzsko, our highest “mountain”, do you think Fritz (I have decided that that is his name) would be awfully impressed if he could be driven almost to the very top…of Australia’s highest mountain? As in…a car, can make it almost to the very tippety-tip-top of the entire Australian continent. 

In a European, or Asian, or North American, or South American, or Antarctican, or Neptunian or even New Zealander mind, the concept of a “mountain” is deeply-intertwined with images of generations of impossibly rugged, devastatingly weather-beaten people scrambling up vertical ice faces, trudging for weeks up perilously steep glaciers, and being swamped by enormous avalanches (which stupid old Gunther started when he sneezed too loudly, destabilising the environmental integrity of the area due to his intolerable cat allergy). 

The idea of a “mountain” in any of these people’s imaginations deeply implies magnificence, intimidation, death, and most importantly…height. 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand I’m afraid we’re a bit short-stocked on those.

I mean people have died on Kosciuzsko, I’m sure. But I imagine it was far more likely that it probably like a 93 year old woman called Ethel who made it to the highest point in the continent with a walking-stick and an IV-drip, and then forgot to bring her medication, and thus, unfortunately expired. This is not a frequent kind of death on mountains on other continents, for the obvious reason that Ethel would not have made it to the Visitor Information centre, let alone the summit. This is a purely Australian alpine death; the kind that is possible because our Alpine areas are roughly equivalent in height to the foothills of the foothills of a particularly sizeable landfill dump in Southern Germany. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love our mountains. They are beauteous things. But I am aware of how small and silly they must look next to other people's mountains (sniff). Please don’t judge us, everyone else. If you saw how flat everywhere else in our country was, they would look like mountains to you too. 

I digress!

THE ORIGINAL POINT OF THIS POST

What I was originally trying to say, was that I have lived mostly in mountainous regions in my life, however recently I have moved to one of the flattest places I have ever been. 

THE SECOND RABBIT HOLE

This place I live now is so flat that if one is driving along at night, and another set of headlights appears on the horizon, you have to play this illuminating game of "headlight chicken" in which you both see how close you can get to the other before it becomes socially inexcusable to keep blaring your enormous and almost-definitely-not-present-when-you-got-your-roadworthy-done spotlights, and you are forced to turn them off. And then you don’t actually reach the other car for another ten minutes, by which point it’s thoroughly awkward between the two of you now, and you quickly give each other the two finger wave and try not to make eye contact.

Have I experienced this in great detail and this is why I have described this so in-depth? No. I’m just…imagining…what this would be like. 

I digress again!!

TIMEOUT SO I GAN REGATHER MY THOUGHTS AND NOT MAKE THIS A REALLY REALLY LONG POST

Hmm…where was I going with this? 

That's right! I have a theory developing; pertaining to why I think people who live in the mountains are objectively more likely to be weird than people who live on the flats. As to whether this is because a mountainous environment causes individuals to become loopy, or because loopy people like the mountains (maybe the varying altitudes and abundance of cliff faces remind them of their mental and emotional landscapes...).

But I think I have gone down too many tracks already, so you'll have to wait for Segment 2 on why Mountain People are weirder than Flat People (and no I do not mean victims of car accidents...oh dear oh MY that was...VERY dark...uhhhh...)

Stay tuned (not you, KGB agents) 

Your ostrich bait,

Mitch