A meaning to life
Antoine de St Exupéry is one of these authors that have always fascinate me. Not just that is writing is beautiful, but also because there is a strong meaning to everything he writes. Sometimes, understanding of the essence of is work can take time. Like when you try to find your place in the world.
In his work, the idea that your are because of what you do, because of what you do for the others, is dominant. It took me a long while to figure out exactly what he meant by that. In several of his book, he describes how people can be lost when they do not have a goal or a purpose to hold on. When they become part of a larger picture, then they transcend and become, and reach a certain peace of mind.
In the past few years, I achieved two major goals in my life: becoming a Naval Architect; crossing the Atlantic ocean. Completing them were great adventures, but left me a bit lost afterwards: what next? Of course, even without a major goal, life carries on. We hang on other goals that are not necessarily core to us, but core to others. We can discover that these "secondary" events in our lives can actually bring us a lot. I didn't come to Tango because of my own interest in this dance, but because of the Love I was carrying to somebody else. Tango was her main goal and she dragged me along on her way.
This discovery was amazing to me. I never really enjoyed night out in bars and clubs (and I still don't), and all of a sudden, I realised that there was people having parties and fun in a completely different manner. I wasn't so much about pretending anymore but about being yourself. I discovered that there was so much more in life than just getting drunk between lads and going to pointless parties. I realised than relationship between people could be simple and enjoyable, that there was a world where you could feel like at home.
Tango was a great rescue boy. I'm forever thankful to the tango community for taking care of me and tango will be part of my life for a long time. I hope I'll keep on dancing until my old age.
But still: since I started tango, there was something I couldn't figure out that kept me from being completely into it. Tango by itself is not my faith. Tango is my way of socialising. It is my way of letting go of emotions that overwhelm me. It is my way of balancing my life. I thought it was going to drive my life like it does for that formal love of mine, or to some of my tango friends. But I was wrong.
Recently, one of my friend and colleague, discovered my passion for mountains and dragged me back to my old dreams. I started climbing about the same time as I started tango. Both activities are very important to me, but not the core of my life. The core of my life, now I realise, seems to be the far sea, high mountains, woodcraft but also thinking and writing. This later part of me will come later. Thinking and writing requires experience. This experience, I will get by doing what others don't necessarily dares to do.
My next project is finally getting started. With a couple of friends, we have decided to start alpinism. Next summer we will start with our first three summits, including, hopefully, the Mont-Blanc. This is great excitement to me: I have been watching the eternally white summit of the Mont-Blanc since I'm a kid. I grew up with stories and tales of my uncle and his friends about reaching it. More recently, a good friend of my uncle and my parents died on the way down of K2. In a way, this woke me up. I can now remember dreaming about climbing "Les Drus" or "Les Grandes Jaurasses" in the Chamonix Valley.
What will be the place of tango in this new goal of mine? The most important one: balancing my life and keep me part of the real world. Because we can too easily forget the other world; because sometimes you need to be told to come back; because sometime you need the people that loves you to keep on going and reach the valley safely.
Den haag, the 30th of November 2008.
Maël Gormand
